Mark Achbar, a Syracuse University Fine Arts Film graduate, began his career interning in Hollywood on Bill Daily’s Hocus Pocus Gang, and working on the documentary series Spread Your Wings in Toronto. He earned a Gemini nomination for co-writing the International Emmy-nominated The Canadian Conspiracy, a mockumentary comedy for CBC and HBO, and later shifted to independent media, collaborating on various film and book projects, including Peter Watkins’ 14.5 hr The Journey and Bob Del Tredici’s At Work in the Fields of the Bomb.

Achbar co-directed the critically acclaimed Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media and The Corporation, Canada’s two highest-grossing feature documentaries. The two films won 48 awards of which 10 were audience awards, including Sundance. 

Achbar leveraged the success of The Corporation with a Telefilm “performance envelope” to Executive Produce and help finance 10 Canadian feature documentaries, including Waterlife, Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space, Fierce Light, Bananas: Poison in a Banana Republic, Neurons to Nirvana: Understanding Psychedelic Medicine, and Surviving Progress, with co-Executive Producer Martin Scorcese

Achbar has Executive Produced over a dozen feature documentaries, mentors many young documentary filmmakers, and has supported animal rights causes with his camerawork. 

During the pandemic, with Sarah Butterfield, Achbar co-founded Speakables, a Vancouver-based tech startup developing speech-to-text devices to aid the deaf and hard of hearing, and people working in noisy environments. 

Achbar established World Psychedelics Day on June 20, 2021, with the goal to have it officially recognized by the United Nations.