Thomas Selim Wallner is an award-winning German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 film-maker, working in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.
Wallner was a co-founder of Xenophile Media

Xenophile Media

Xenophile Media is a Toronto-based cross-platform production company founded in 2002 by Patrick Crowe and Thomas Wallner. They are best known for creating alternate reality games linked to television series such as the ReGenesis Extended Reality game produced in association with Shaftesbury Films...

 in 2001.
He has worked with Rhombus Media since 1995.

His documentary, The Guantanamo Trap

The Guantanamo Trap

The Guantanamo Trap is a documentary film about four individuals whose lives were changed by their association with the Guantanamo Bay detention camps...

won the Special Jury Prize at the 2011 Hot Docs film festival.
Wallner won a Gemini Award

Gemini Award

The Gemini Awards are annual television broadcasting industry awards in Canada.First awarded in 1986, the Geminis celebrate the achievements of TV members of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. Essentially, it presents awards for the best television productions in Canada. Awards are...

 for writing for Beethoven's Hair.

Wallner described being put on the "no-fly list" in 2005, after declining to submit to an iris-scan when he tried to travel to the USA.
He stated this was his inspiration for The Guantanamo Trap.