A History of Women's Filmmaking at the National Film Board of Canada
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A HISTORY OF WOMEN’S FILMMAKING AT THE NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA THE NATIONAL FILM BOARD But the NFB’s work with women moved rapidly into creative filmmakers also goes back to its roles. Perhaps the best-known OF CANADA INTRODUCED earliest days. among them were Canada’s A PIONEERING GENDER- first woman animator, Evelyn PARITY INITIATIVE IN 2016, When Canada entered WWII Lambart, who co-directed six in September 1939, the newly films with Norman McLaren and ENSURING THAT AT LEAST created public producer was also directed an acclaimed body HALF OF ITS PRODUCTIONS immediately tasked with of solo work; Jane Marsh, the making war-related propaganda. only woman to direct films for WILL BE DIRECTED BY With so many men engaged the legendary Canada Carries WOMEN AND HALF OF ALL in overseas conflict, women On series; and documentary PRODUCTION SPENDING WILL were entering the workforce filmmaker Gudrun Parker, in unprecedented numbers— who would go on to run the BE ALLOCATED TO FILMS and some would find work on NFB’s Education Unit. Besides DIRECTED BY WOMEN. NFB founder John Grierson’s directing their own films, IN 2017, THE NFB DEEPENED THIS COMMITMENT TO ADDRESS THE GENDER IMBALANCE ACROSS A RANGE OF KEY CREATIVE POSITIONS IN FILM—IN SCREENWRITING, EDITING, SOUND MIXING AND CINEMATOGRAPHY—AS WELL AS ANIMATION AND IMMERSIVE/INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING ROLES SUCH AS ART DIRECTOR, ART EVELYN LAMBART DESIGNER AND CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST. new team. A number of women Judith Crawley and Margaret These new commitments are the came with prior experience and Perry were the first two women latest for the NFB, a Canadian immediately started directing cinematographers to work at the film industry leader in gender films, including Evelyn Spice Film Board. equality that made history in Cherry and Judith Crawley. For 1974 when it established Studio the most part, however, the first With the advent of television D, the world’s first production women recruits were hired into and the NFB’s move to Montreal unit devoted exclusively to work junior positions as negative in 1956, a new wave of French- by women filmmakers. cutters and secretaries. Canadian filmmakers joined Grierson was quick to recognize the agency. Monique Fortier was initiative, and some women the first francophone woman 1 A HISTORY OF WOMEN’S FILMMAKING AT THE NFB to direct an NFB film, À l’heure would establish its own women’s Quebec’s Prix Albert-Tessier de la décolonisation (1963), program, Regards de femmes, for lifetime achievement in while Anne Claire Poirier would under the direction of Josée cinema, and Mireille Dansereau, emerge as a leading Quebec Beaudet. co-founder of the Association feminist and one of the most coopérative des productions important filmmakers of her Studio D would go on to make audio-visuelles and the first generation. some of the NFB’s most woman in Quebec to direct celebrated films. In its first a fiction feature film for the Poirier and Kathleen Shannon decade alone, the studio private sector. led the fight for more resources produced three Oscar-winning for women’s filmmaking at the documentaries: Beverly Working predominantly in the NFB, each creating a landmark Shaffer’s I’ll Find a Way (1977), 1980s, Diane Beaudry directed a series on the experiences of Terre Nash’s If You Love This rich body of work documenting women for the NFB’s pioneering Planet (1982) and Cynthia the experiences of women activist film program, Challenge Scott’s Flamenco at 5:15 (1984). across a range of endeavours, for Change/Société nouvelle. Not a Love Story (1981), Bonnie including her 1986 film on Sherr Klein’s controversial women in politics, Histoire à Shannon lobbied tirelessly for exposé of commercial suivre.... Diane Létourneau is a separate women’s production pornography, became one of another prolific French Program unit, and in 1974, in anticipation the NFB’s biggest commercial director, whose work includes of the United Nations’ hits. Later on came Gail Singer’s Pas d’amitié à moitié (1991), International Women’s Year, pioneering look at women in exploring lifelong friendships Studio D became the world’s comedy, Wisecracks (1991), while among a group of women. first publicly funded production Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Marquise Lepage has directed landmark works of women’s cinema such as The Lost Garden: The Life and Cinema of Alice Guy-Blaché, her 1995 portrait of a tireless but largely ignored film pioneer, and the Gémeaux Award-winning Of Hopscotch and Little Girls... (1999), a powerful look at girls around the world whose dreams have been shattered by abuse, forced labour, mutilation and other injustices. In 1981, the Canadian government launched the Federal Women’s Film Program (FWFP), a coalition of federal ministries and agencies that produced and distributed films ANNE CLAIRE POIRIER about the status of women in ANNE CLAIRE POIRIER both French and English, which was administered by Studio D. unit dedicated to making Stories of Lesbian Lives (1992), Working outside Studio D, films by and for women, with directed by Aerlyn Weissman Cynthia Scott collaborated with Shannon as its first executive and Lynne Fernie, brought screenwriter Gloria Demers on producer. Poirier, meanwhile, LGBTQ issues to a general the acclaimed alternative drama chose to stay on as an executive audience. The Company of Strangers producer with Société nouvelle, In French-language production, (1990). Alanis Obomsawin where she believed she could the NFB has worked with such directed such milestone films make the biggest difference. In acclaimed documentarians as Incident at Restigouche (1984) 1986, the NFB’s French Program as Manon Barbeau, winner of and Kanehsatake: 270 Years 2 A HISTORY OF WOMEN’S FILMMAKING AT THE NFB of Resistance (1993). Margaret women, leading to such works as American women in Islam, Wescott, who had directed Sisters in the Struggle (1991), Elizabeth St. Philip’s Breakin’ Studio D’s Behind the Veil: co-directed by Dionne Brand In: The Making of a Hip Hop Nuns (1984), explored lesbian and Ginny Stikeman, a multi- Dancer (2005), and Karen Cho’s history in Stolen Moments award-winning look at Black Status Quo? The Unfinished (1997). In By Woman’s Hand women in community, labour Business of Feminism in Canada (1994), Pepita Ferrari chronicled and feminist organizing. (2012). the influential Beaver Hall Hill Group of women artists, while The groundwork laid by NIF In 1996, two years after its Terre Nash would go on to adapt grew into a strong commitment 20th anniversary, Studio D Marilyn Waring’s pioneering to achieving equitable was disbanded during a period work in feminist economics representation of Indigenous in Who’s Counting? Marilyn and culturally diverse voices Waring on Sex, Lies and Global across the NFB, with films Economics (1995). like the 1997 Indigenous documentaries Tshishe PAULE BAILLARGEON of downsizing and shifting internal priorities, leaving in its stead a commitment to women’s filmmaking and cultural diversity that is now deeply anchored in the NFB’s production studios across the KATHLEEN SHANNON country. The early decades of the 21st century have been fruitful ones In 1991, Studio D began to Mishtikuashisht – Le petit for women’s cinema at the NFB, respond to demands for greater grand européen: Johan Beetz yielding a body of work that cultural diversity within the by Joséphine Bacon and French includes Sarah Polley’s multi- unit with New Initiatives in Man, Native Son by Monika Ille; award-winning Stories We Tell Film (NIF), a program to provide If the Weather Permits (2003), (2012), one of the most popular film training to women of Elisapie Isaac’s exploration of NFB theatrical documentaries colour and Indigenous women. social change in Nunavik; and of all time. Winner of Quebec’s Studio D head Rina Fraticelli Tasha Hubbard’s Canada Award- two highest honours for lifetime worked with Nova Scotia winning film on the Saskatoon achievement in film, Paule filmmaker Sylvia Hamilton— freezing deaths, Two Worlds Baillargeon wrote and directed co-director of the acclaimed Colliding (2004). the striking, autobiographical Black Mother Black Daughter Trente tableaux (2011), while (1989)—to design a program that They also include such Carole Laganière’s Absences would attempt to address the acclaimed works as Zarqa (2013) is a story of loss inspired underrepresentation of films by Nawaz’s Me and the Mosque by her own experience of losing women of colour and Indigenous (2005), on the place of North her mother to Alzheimer’s. 3 A HISTORY OF WOMEN’S FILMMAKING AT THE NFB Chelsea McMullan’s artful profile of transgender performer Rae Spoon, My Prairie Home (2013), premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, as did Sophie Deraspe’s NFB co-production The Amina Profile (2015), winner of a Special Jury Prize for Canadian Feature at Hot Docs. Other key documentary titles included Alanis Obomsawin’s Trick or Treaty? (2014), which garnered the Audience Choice Award at imagineNATIVE; Ève Lamont’s Le commerce du sexe (2015), a powerful exploration of the sex trade as a modern form of slavery; as well as Mina Shum’s Ninth Floor (2015), which ALANIS OBOMSAWIN reopens the file on a watershed moment in Canadian race relations history. Award in Visual and Media Arts At a time when the financing for her body of work. model for feature documentary Women have also had a films in Canada is in free fall profound impact on the First nominated for an Academy (despite the fact that feature direction of animated Award for her 1991 paint-on- docs are increasingly popular storytelling across Canada, glass short, Strings, Wendy with audiences), the NFB has especially in Quebec, home to Tilby would partner with been an incubator for ambitious the NFB’s two Oscar-winning Amanda Forbis on two more and creative feature docs animation studios.