Sam Dunn

Sam Dunn
Sam Dunn performing live with Burn to Black, 2005
Born	(1974-03-20) 20 March 1974 (age 42) Stroud, England
Alma mater	University of Victoria (B.A.) York University (M.A.)
Occupation	Director, musician, anthropologist
Awards	Gemini Award in 2007 for Metal: A Headbanger's Journey SXSW Viewers Choice Award in 2009 for Iron Maiden: Flight 666 Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award in 2010 for Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage

Sam Dunn (born 20 March 1974) is a Canadian musician, film director, and anthropologist best known for his series of documentaries on heavy metal music. Together with Scot McFadyen, Dunn owns the Toronto based production company Banger Films. Dunn holds a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of Victoria and a master's degree from York University where his thesis work centered on Guatemalan refugees.

Dunn's first film, co-directed with Scot McFadyen and Jessica Wise, was released in 2005. The film follows Dunn on a journey to document the origins, culture and appeal of heavy metal. It also explores the themes of heavy metal- violence, death, religion and Satanism, gender and sexuality. The documentary featured interviews with Geddy Lee of Rush and Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, whose bands Dunn would profile in later documentaries.

Released in 2008, Sam directed a new film, titled Global Metal. In the film, directors Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn set out to discover how the West’s most maligned musical genre – heavy metal – has impacted the world’s cultures beyond Europe and North America. The film follows metal fan and anthropologist Sam Dunn on a whirlwind journey through Asia, South America and the Middle East as he explores the underbelly of the world’s emerging extreme music scenes — from Indonesian death metal to Israeli Oriental metal and Chinese black metal to Iranian thrash metal, etc. The film reveals a worldwide community of metalheads who are not just absorbing metal from the West – they are transforming it, and creating a new form of cultural expression in societies dominated by conflict, corruption and mass-consumerism.