Born in London, England, Wyndham Wise was raised in Don Mills, a suburb of Toronto. He has a M.A. from the Graduate School of Drama, University of Toronto, and a Master of Fine Arts from the Graduate Programme in Film and Video, York University. On stage as a child with the Don Mills Players, he was the first film contributor to the monthly city listings in Toronto Life magazine (1972–74).
During the mid-1970s, Wise was part of the nascent Toronto underground theatre scene, producing Shop-Talk (Toronto Free Theatre, 1976), Spinning (CEAC and P.S. 1. NYC, 1977) and Con/Notes (produced by Theatre Passe Muraille at CEAC, 1977) with Richard Shoichet. He was cameraman and editor on several installations by the noted Canadian artist Noel Harding, and he also produced and directed three 16-mm shorts: Garbage (1974), A Sound Film (1975) and Spinning (1976). Wise was a volunteer driver during the first Toronto Festival of Festivals (1976) and appeared in commercials, on television and in feature films, including a bit part in the Toronto-shot children’s classic The Black Stallion. In 1982, he co-produced the documentary Liona Boyd First Lady of the Guitar for C Channel and Liona Boyd in Concert, which was broadcast on Global TV in 1983.
He founded and was the editor-in-chief of Take One: Film & Television in Canada (ISSN 1192-5507, OCLC 60624126), which was published from 1992—2006. Over its 14-year publishing history it grew in stature to become Canada's finest film magazine, and introduced the term Toronto New Wave into the Canadian canon.
He taught film studies at Algoma University (1985 & 1988) and York University (1987–88), and media writing at Sheridan College (1989–93). He served as the last Toronto reporter for Cinema Canada magazine (1988–89), launched POV magazine in 1990 for the Canadian Independent Film Caucus (now the Documentary Organization of Canada) and edited the final issue of Independent Eye (1991) for the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre. In 1997, he was instrumental in founding the Toronto Film Critics Association and launched Canadian Screenwriter for the Writers Guild of Canada in 1998.
In 2001, Wise edited Take One's Essential Guide to Canadian Film, published by the University of Toronto Press, a concise history of Canadian cinema. In 2008, Wise was hired by the Canadian Society of Cinematographers to edit CSC News, which he transformed into Canadian Cinematographer in 2009. That year, his historical survey “Up from the Underground: Filmmaking in Toronto from Winter Kept Us Warm to Shivers” appeared in Toronto on Film published by the Wilfred Laurier Press.
He has lectured with the LIFE Institute at Ryerson University, is a former contributor and consultant to the Northernstars.ca website, Historica's Canadian Encyclopedia and the author of over 400 articles, biographies, interviews and reviews. On occasion, he wrote under the pseudonym Paul Townend.
Articles & Essays
"13 Scary Canadian Films for Halloween", Northernstars [1]
"Aldoph Zukor: The Napoleon of Motion Pictures", Historica Canada Blog [2]
"The Bethune Myth: Man and Movie", Cinema Canada No. 166 [3]
"Biograph's Three Canadian Beauties", Northernstars [4]
"Bollywood in Canada", Canadian Encyclopedia [5]
"Canadian Cinema from Boom to Bust: The Tax-Shelter Years", Take One: Film in Canada No. 22 [6]
"Canadian, Eh? Take One's Unofficial List of 20 Box Office Hits", Take One: Film in Canada No. 27 (w/ Maurie Alioff) [7]
Canadian Feature Films, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Peter Harcourt) [8]
Canadian Film Animation, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Marcel Jean, Piers Handling) [9]
Canadian Film Awards, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Andrew McIntosh) [10]
Canadian Film Festivals, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ André Paquet) [11]
"Canadian Romantic Movies, Eh?", Historica Canada Blog [12]
Canadians & the Oscars, Northernstars (w/ Ralph Lucas) [13]
"Can Sarah Polley Beat the Sophomore Curse?", Historica Canada Blog [14]
"Cinematographers at the Revue: The Shinning", Canadian Cinematographers January 2011 [15]
Comedy, Canadian Encyclopedia ((w/ David Rosen) [16]
The Craft of Motion Picture Making, Canadian Encyclopedia [17]
"Cronenberg: From Shivers to Respectability", Historica Canada Blog [18]
"David Cronenberg Talks to Atom Egoyan about M.Butterfly, the Pitfalls of Preview Screenings, and the True Nature of 'Selling Out' to a Major U.S. Studio", Take One No. 3 [19]
"Drabinsky and MCA Battle for Control of Cineplex", Cinema Canada No. 162 [20]
"An Elephantine Hit", Cinema Canada No. 144 [21]
"The Evolution of Ivan Reitman", Northernstars [22]
Festival Wraps: The National Screen Institute's Film Exchange, Take One: Film in Canada No, 37 [23]
Festival Wraps: St. John's International Women's Film and Video Festival, Take One: Film in Canada No. 44 [24]
Genie Awards, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Andrew McIntosh) [25]
The Girl from God's Country: Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema, Take One: Film in Canada No. 44 [26]
Golden Screen Award, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Andrew McIntosh) [27]
"Has TIFF Become Too Big to Fail?", Historica Canada Blog [28]
History of the Canadian Film Industry, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Peter Morris, Ted Magder, Piers Handling) [29]
"A History of Ontario's Film Industry: 1895–1986", Take One: Film in Canada No. 28 [30]
"Is Film Dead?", Take One: Film in Canada No. 31 [31]
"It's an Oscar Hat Trick for Quebec Cinema!", Historica Canada Blog [32]
"It Was 40 Years Ago Today", Northernstars [33]
Kids in the Hall, Canadian Encyclopedia [34]
"Kid Vid: A Survey of Canadian Children's Television Programming", Cinema Canada No. 153 [35]
"Lantern Hill: Journey of the Heart", Cinema Canada No. 158 [36]
"Love It or Hate It, This Time 3D Is Here to Stay", Canadian Cinematographer January 2011 [37]
Marketplace, Canadian Encyclopedia [38]
Mondo Canuck, Take One: Film in Canada No. 14 [39]
National Film Board of Canada, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Peter Morris) [40]
"Northern Comfort", Cinema Canada No. 154 [41]
Rhombus Media, Canadian Encyclopedia [42]
"Setting the Record Straight about POV and Hot Docs", Take One: Film in Canada No. 45 [43]
"Still Dreaming of a Perfect Genie", Historica Canada Blog [44]
"The Story behind A Christmas Story", Historica Canada Blog [45]
Take One: Film in Canada Editorial, "What Is Canadian Cinema?" Vol. 5 No. 12 [46]
Take One: Film in Canada Editorial, Vol. 9 No. 28 [47]
Take One's 1997 Survey of Canadian Films in the GTA, Take One: Film in Canada No. 18 [48]
Take One's 1998 Survey of Canadian Films in the GTA, Take One: Film in Canada No. 22 [49]
Take One's 1999 Survey of Canadian Films in the GTA, Take One: Film in Canada No. 26 [50]
Take One's 2000 Survey of Canadian Films in the GTA, Take One: Film in Canada No. 31 [51]
Take One's 2001 Survey of Canadian Films in the GTA, Take One: Film in Canada No. 36 [52]
Take One's 2002 Survey of Canadian Films in the GTA, Take One: Film in Canada No. 41 [53]
Take One's 2003 Survey of Canadian Films in the GTA, Take One: Film in Canada No. 45 [54]
Take One's 2004 Survey of Canadian Films in the GTA, Take One: Film in Canada No. 49 [55]
"TIFF Turns 30", Take One: Film in Canada No. 51 [56]
The Toronto New Wave, Wikipedia [57]
Trailer Park Boys, Canadian Encyclopedia [58]
"A Tribute to the Brillance of Jack Cardiff asc", Canadian Cinematographer April 2011 [59]
"The True Meaning of Exotica", Take One: Film in Canada No. 9 [60]
"Up from the Underground: Filmmaking in Toronto from Winter Kept Us Warm to Shivers", Toronto on Film (2009) [61]
"Who Was the First Canadian Movie Star?: D.W. Griffith, the Keystone Kops and the Canadian Connection", Take One: Film in Canada No. 46 [62]
Lucio Agostini, Northernstars [63]
Philip Akin, Northernstars [64]
Bayo Akinfemi, Northernstars [65]
Jay and Jules Allen, Wikipedia [66]
Paul Almond, Canadian Encyclopedia [67]
Pamela Anderson, Canadian Encyclopedia [68]
Trey Anthony, Northernstars [69]
Michel Arcand, Canadian Encyclopedia [70]
Tré Armstrong, Northernstars [71]
Cordell Barker, Canadian Encyclopedia [72]
Adam Beach, Canadian Encyclopedia [73]
Robert Beatty, Canadian Encyclopedia [74]
Clé Bennett, Northernstars [75]
Lyriq Bent, Northernstars [76]
Ardon Bess, Northernstars [77]
Julian Biggs, Wikipedia [78]
Yannick Bisson, Canadian Encyclopedia [79]
Ben Blue, Canadian Encyclopedia [80]
Lothaire Bluteau, Canadian Encyclopedia [81]
Lloyd Wolfe Bochner, Canadian Encyclopedia [82]
Stephen Bosustow, Canadian Encyclopedia [83]
Cory Bowles, Northernstars [84]
Raymond Burr, Canadian Encyclopedia [85]
James Cameron, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ William Beard) [86]
Rod Cameron, Canadian Encyclopedia [87]
Neve Campbell, Canadian Encyclopedia [88]
Nicholas Campbell, Canadian Encyclopedia [89]
Gil Cardinal, Canadian Encyclopedia [90]
Tantoo Cardinal, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ James Defelice, Anne-Marie Pedersen) [91]
Gilles Carle, Canadian Cinematographer January 2010 [92]
Don Carmody, Canadian Encyclopedia [93]
Jim Carrey, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ William Beard) [94]
Jack Carson, Canadian Encyclopedia [95]
Kim Cattrall, Canadian Encyclopedia [96]
Maury Chaykin, Canadian Encyclopedia [97]
Susan Clark, Canadian Encyclopedia [98]
Richard Condie, Canadian Encyclopedia [99]
Rachael Crawford, Northernstars [100]
David Cronenberg, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Piers Handling) [101]
Henry Czerny, Canadian Encyclopedia [102]
Holly Dale, Canadian Encyclopedia [103]
William Davidson, Wikipedia [104]
Hubert Davis, Northernstars [105]
Richard Day, Canadian Encyclopedia [106]
Yonne De Carlo, Canadian Encyclopedia [107]
Hugh Dillon, Canadian Encyclopedia [108]
Edward Dmytryk, Canadian Encyclopedia [109]
Fefe Dobson, Northernstars [110]
James Doohan, Canadian Encyclopedia [111]
Marie Dressler, Canadian Encyclopedia [112]
Jack Duffy, Canadian Encyclopedia [113]
George Dunning, Canadian Encyclopedia [114]
Deanna Durbin, Canadian Encyclopedia [115]
Allan Dwan, Canadian Encyclopedia [116]
Jake Eberts, Canadian Encyclopedia [117]
Gary Dale Farmer, Canadian Encyclopedia [118]
David Fine and Alison Snowden, Canadian Encyclopedia [119]
Joe Flaherty, Canadian Encyclopedia [120]
Dave Foley, Canadian Encyclopedia [121]
Glenn Ford, Canadian Encyclopedia [122]
Colin Fox, Canadian Encyclopedia [123]
Michael J. Fox, Canadian Encyclopedia [124]
Roger Frappier, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Marcel Jean) [125]
Victor Garber, Canadian Encyclopedia [126]
Anais Granofsky, Northernstars [127]
William Greaves, Northernstars [128]
Graham Greene, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Gwen Riis Howard) [129]
Bruce Greenwood, Canadian Encyclopedia [130]
Guy Glover, Wikipedia [131]
Ryan Gosling, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Patrick Mullen) [132]
John Greyson, Canadian Encyclopedia [133]
Paul Gross, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ David Prosser) [134]
Sturla Gunnarsson, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Andrew McIntosh) [135]
Paul Haggis, Canadian Encyclopedia [136]
Monte Hall, Canadian Encyclopedia [137]
Peter Harcourt, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Andrew McIntosh) [138]
Doug Henning, Canadian Encyclopedia [139]
Arthur Hiller, Canadian Encyclopedia [140]
Christopher Hinton, Canadian Encyclopedia [141]
Eric House, Canadian Encyclopedia [142]
Joseph-Arthur Homier, Wikipedia [143]
Walter Huston, Canadian Encyclopedia [144]
John Ireland, Canadian Encyclopedia [145]
Michael Ironside, Canadian Encyclopedia [146]
Tom Jackson, Canadian Encyclopedia [147]
Rebecca Jenkins, Canadian Encyclopedia [148]
Norman Jewison, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Karen Laurence) [149]
Clark Johnson, Northernstars [150]
Andy Jones, Canadian Encyclopedia [151]
Cathy Jones, Canadian Encyclopedia [152]
Victor Jory, Canadian Encyclopedia [153]
Robert Joy, Canadian Encyclopedia [154]
Erin Karpluk, Canadian Encyclopedia [155]
Ruby Keeler, Canadian Encyclopedia [156]
Arsinée Khanjian, Canadian Encyclopedia [157]
Margot Kidder, Canadian Encyclopedia [158]
Allan King, Canadian Cinematographer September 2009 [159]
Karen King, Northernstars [160]
Alexander Knox, Canadian Encyclopedia [161]
Wolf Koenig, Canadian Encyclopedia [162]
Elias Koteas, Canadian Encyclopedia [163]
Torill Kove, Canadian Encyclopedia [164]
Roman Kroitor, Canadian Encyclopedia [165]
Derek Lamb, Canadian Encyclopedia [166]
Evelyn Lambart, Canadian Encyclopedia [167]
Chris Landreth, Canadian Encyclopedia [168]
Ryan Larkin, Canadian Encyclopedia [169]
Florence Lawrence, Canadian Encyclopedia [170]
Caroline Leaf, Canadian Encyclopedia [171]
Eugene Levy, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Claire Seringhaus) [172]
Georgina Lightning, Canadian Encyclopedia [173]
Art Linkletter, Canadian Encyclopedia [174]
Gene Lockhart, Canadian Encyclopedia [175]
Jessica Lucas, Northernstars [176]
Terence Macartney-Filgate, Canadian Encyclopedia [177]
Eunice Macaulay, Canadian Encyclopedia [178]
James MacKay, Canadian Encyclopedia [179]
Gisele MacKenzie, Canadian Encyclopedia [180]
Greg Malone, Canadian Encyclopedia [181]
Nick Mancuso, Canadian Encyclopedia [182]
Louis B. Mayer, Canadian Encyclopedia [183]
Sean McCann, Canadian Encyclopedia [184]
Sheila McCarthy, Canadian Encyclopedia [185]
Bruce McCulloch, Canadian Encyclopedia [186]
Stephen McHattie, Canadian Encyclopedia [187]
Mark McKinney, Canadian Encyclopedia [188]
Lorne Michaels, Canadian Encyclopedia [189]
John Morgan, Canadian Encyclopedia [190]
Peter Morris, Canadian Encyclopedia [191]
Grant Munro, Canadian Encyclopedia [192]
Leslie Nielsen, Canadian Encyclopedia [193]
Sandra Oh, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Patrick Mullen) [194]
Charles Officer, Northernstars [195]
Don Owen, Canadian Encyclopedia [196]
Gudrun Bjerring Parker, Canadian Encyclopedia [197]
Morten Parker, Canadian Encyclopedia [198]
Ishu Patel, Canadian Encyclopedia [199]
Anna Paquin, Canadian Encyclopedia [200]
Conrad Pia, Northernstars [201]
Walter Pidgeon, Canadian Encyclopedia [202]
Christopher Plummer, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ David Gardner) [203]
Leah Pinsent, Canadian Encyclopedia [204]
Gerald Potterton, Canadian Encyclopedia [205]
John Qualen, Canadian Encyclopedia [206]
Harry Rasky, Canadian Encyclopedia [207]
Peter Raymont, Canadian Encyclopedia [208]
Ivan Reitman, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ William Beard) [209]
Gloria Reuben, Northernstars [210]
Donnelly Rhodes, Canadian Encyclopedia [211]
Percy Rodgriguez, Northernstars [212]
Mark Robson, Canadian Encyclopedia [213]
Arla Saare, Canadian Encyclopedia [214]
Mort Sahl, Canadian Encyclopedia [215]
Ronald Sanders, Canadian Encyclopedia [216]
Vic Sarin, Canadian Encyclopedia [217]
Michael Sarrazin, Canadian Encyclopedia [218]
Russell Saunders, Canadian Encyclopedia [219]
August Schellenberg, Canadian Encyclopedia [220]
Tommy Sexton, Canadian Encyclopedia [221]
William Shatner, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ David Hustak) [222]
Helen Jane Shaver, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ David Gardner) [223]
Douglas Shearer, Canadian Encyclopedia [224]
Norma Shearer, Canadian Encyclopedia [225]
Don Shebib, Canadian Encyclopedia [226]
Ernest Shipman, Wikipedia [227]
Susan, Shipton, Canadian Encyclopedia [228]
Alexis Smith, Canadian Encyclopedia [229]
Sonja Smits, Canadian Encyclopedia [230]
Paul Soles, Canadian Encyclopedia [231]
Carol Spier, Canadian Encyclopedia [232]
Robin Spry, Canadian Encyclopedia [233]
Mark Starowicz, Canadian Encyclopedia [234]
David Steinberg, Canadian Encyclopedia [235]
George Stroumboulopoulos, Canadian Encyclopedia [236]
David Sutherland, Northernstars [237]
Kevin Sullivan, Canadian Encyclopedia [238]
David Thomas, Canadian Encyclopedia [239]
Wendy Tilby, Canadian Encyclopedia [240]
Jennifer Tilly, Canadian Encyclopedia [241]
Meg Tilly, Canadian Encyclopedia [242]
Gordon Tootoosis, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Patrick Mullen) [243]
Ian Tracey, Canadian Encyclopedia [244]
Vanity (Denise Matthews), Northernstars [245]
Robert Verrall, Canadian Encyclopedia [246]
Nerene Virgin, Northernstars [247]
Clement Virgo, Northernstars [248]
Clement Virgo, Canadian Encyclopedia [249]
John Walker, Canadian Encyclopedia [250]
Jack Warner, Canadian Encyclopedia [251]
John Weldon, Canadian Encyclopedia [252]
Richard Williams, Canadian Encyclopedia [253]
Stephen Williams, Northernstars [254]
Tonya Lee Williams, Northernstars [255]
Maurice Dean Wint, Northernstars [256]
Joseph Wiseman, Canadian Encyclopedia [257]
Fay Wray, Canadian Encyclopedia [258]
24 heure ou plus, Wikipedia [259]
60 Cycles, Wikipedia [260]
À la croisée des chemins, Wikipedia [261]
Action: The October Crisis of 1970, Wikipedia [262]
Act of the Heart, Canadian Encyclopedia [263]
The Adjuster, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Andrew McIntosh) [264]
Ararat, Canadian Encyclopedia [265]
Art of War, Take One: Film in Canada No. 30 [266]
Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Andrew McIntosh) [267]
Atlantic City, Canadian Encyclopedia [268]
Au claire de la lune, Canadian Encyclopedia [269]
Away from Her, Northernstars [270]
Barney's Version, Northernstars [271]
Bar Salon, Canadian Encyclopedia [272]
Between Strangers, Take One: Film in Canada No. 40 [273]
Black Christmas (remake), Northernstars [274]
Blackfly, Wikipedia [275]
Black Robe, Canadian Encyclopedia [276]
Bollywood Bound, Take One: Film In Canada No. 37 [277]
Black Eyed Dog, Northernstars [278]
Bye Bye Blues, Canadian Encyclopedia [279]
Cairo Time, Canadian Encyclopedia [280]
Calendar, Canadian Encyclopedia [281]
City of Gold, Canadian Encyclopedia [282]
Civic Duty, Northernstars [283]
The Climb, Cinema Canada No. 149 [284]
Congorama, Northernstars [285]
Contre toute espérance, Wikipedia [286]
The Corporation, Canadian Encyclopedia [287]
Crash, Canadian Encyclopedia [288]
C.R.A.Z.Y., Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Andrew McIntosh) [289]
C't'a ton tour, Laura Cadieux, Canadian Encyclopedia [290]
A Dangerous Age, Canadian Encyclopedia [291]
A Dangerous Method, Northernstars [292]
Days of Darkness, Northernstars [293]
Dead Ringers, (w/ Andrew McIntosh) Canadian Encyclopedia [294]
The Dog Who Stopped the War, Canadian Encyclopedia [295]
Double Happiness, Canadian Encyclopedia [296]
Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary, Take One: Film in Canada No. 42 [297]
Drying Up the Streets, Wikipedia [298]
Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster, Northernstars [299]
Eliza's Horoscope, Wikipedia [300]
Emotional Arithmetic, Northernstars [301]
Emporte-moi, Canadian Encyclopedia [302]
Everything's Gone Green, Northernstars [303]
Fido, Northernstars [304]
Gambling, Gods and LSD, Canadian Encyclopedia [305]
Goin' down the Road, Take One: The Official Publication of the Cambridge Film Festival [306]
Goin' down the Road, Take One: Film in Canada No. 46 [307]
Gravity, Take One: The Official Publication of the Cambridge Film Festival [308]
The Hanging Garden, Canadian Encyclopedia [309]
Hard Core Logo, Canadian Encyclopedia [310]
The Hard Part Begins, Wikipedia [311]
Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway, Wikipedia [312]
Il ne faut pas mourir pour ça, Wikipedia [313]
Inescapable, Northernstars [314]
Isabel, Canadian Encyclopedia [315]
J.A. Martin, photographe, Canadian Encyclopedia [316]
Kitt Kittredge: An American Girl, Northernstars [317]
Labyrinth, Canadian Encyclopedia [318]
Last Night, Canadian Encyclopedia [319]
The Last Round, Take One: Film in Canada No. 42 [320]
Lest We Forget, Wikipedia [321]
Lilies, Canadian Encyclopedia [322]
Man of Steel, Take One: The Official Publication of the Cambridge Film Festival [323]
Manufactured Landscapes, Northernstars [324]
The Man Who Skied down Everest, Canadian Encyclopedia [325]
Ma vie en cinemascope, Canadian Encyclopedia [326]
Meatballs, Canadian Encyclopedia [327]
Me, the Bees and Cancer, Northernstars [328]
Midnight's Children, Northernstars [329]
Mount Pleasant, Northernstars [330]
Nanook of the North, Canadian Encyclopedia [331]
New Waterford Girl, Take One: Film in Canada No. 30 [332]
Nobody Waved Good-Bye, Take One: Film in Canada No. 46 [333]
Norman McLaren: Master's Edition DVDs, Northernstars [334]
Not a Love Story: A Film about Pornography, Canadian Encyclopedia [335]
The Perfect Son, Take One: Film in Canada No. 31 [336]
Now That April's Here, Wikipedia [337]
Octobre, Canadian Encyclopedia [338]
The Owl Who Married a Goose, Wikipedia [339]
Paperback Hero, Canadian Encyclopedia [340]
Picture of Light, Wikipedia [341]
Les Plouffe, Canadian Encyclopedia [342]
Porky's, Northernstars [343]
Porky's, Take One: The Official Publication of the Cambridge Film Festival [344]
Pour la suite du monde, Canadian Encyclopedia [345]
Prologue, Wikipedia [346]
Quest for Fire, Canadian Encyclopedia [347]
Rebel without a Cause, Take One: The Official Publication of the Cambridge Film Festival [348]
The Red Violin, Canadian Encyclopedia [349]
Roadkill, Canadian Encyclopedia [350]
Rude, Canadian Encyclopedia [351]
The Saddest Music in the World, Canadian Encyclopedia [352]
Saint Monica, Take One: Film in Canada No. 40 [353]
Saint Ralph, Take One: Film in Canada No. 49 [354]
Seducing Doctor Lewis, Canadian Encyclopedia [355]
Spider, Canadian Encyclopedia [356]
Stardom, Take One: Film in Canada No. 30 [357]
Stations, Canadian Encyclopedia [358]
The Stone Angel, Northernstars [359]
Stories We Tell, Northernstars [360]
Summer in Mississippi, Wikipedia [361]
The Sweet Hereafter, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Andrew McIntosh) [362]
Taking Care, Cinema Canada No. 150 [363]
That Beautiful Somewhere, Northernstars [364]
Tideland, Northernstars [365]
Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, Northernstars [366]
Treed Murray, Take One: Film in Canada No. 35 [367]
Trigger, Northernstars [368]
Les Triplettes de Belleville, Canadian Encyclopedia [369]
Trumbo, Take One: The Official Publication of the Cambridge Film Festival [370]
Universe, Canadian Encyclopedia [371]
Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry, Canadian Encyclopedia [372]
Up the Yangtze, Northernstars [373]
Valérie, Canadian Encyclopedia [374]
La Vie rêvée, Canadian Encyclopedia [375]
La Vieux pays ou Rimbaud est mort, Wikipedia [376]
La Vraie nature de Bernadette, Canadian Encyclopedia (w/ Andrew McIntosh) [377]
Walk All over Me, Northernstars [378]
Warrendale, Canadian Encyclopedia [379]
Water, Canadian Encyclopedia [380]
Wavelength, Canadian Encyclopedia [381]
Young People Fucking, Northernstars [382]
Young Triffie, Northernstars [383]
Zero Patience, Canadian Encyclopedia [384]
Un Zoo la nuit, Canadian Encyclopedia [385]
Paul Almond, Northernstars web interview [386]
Paul Almond, Take One: Film in Canada No. 43 [387]
Louise Archamault (Familia), Take One: Film in Canada No. 51 [388]
Jacques Bensimon, Take One: Film in Canada No. 37 [389]
Don Carmody, Canadian Cinematographer April 2011 (w/ Ralph Lucas) [390]
Christopher Chapman csc, Canadian Cinematographer March 2010 (w/ Gerald Pratley, Pat Thompson) [391]
Wayne Clarkson, Take One: Film in Canada No. 21 [392]
Steve Cosens csc, CSC News February 2009 [393]
David Cronenberg (eXistenZ), Take One: Film in Canada No. 23 [394]
Graeme Ferguson, Take One: Film in Canada No. 17 [395]
Graeme Ferguson csc, Canadian Cinematographer December 2010 [396]
Atom Egoyan, Northernstars (w/ Marc Glassman) [397]
Rob Forsyth, Canadian Screenwriter No. 1 [398]
Laszlo George csc, CSC News November 2008 [399]
Sturla Gunnarsson, Take One: Film in Canada No. 40 [400]
Manfred Guthe csc, Canadian Cinematographer October 2009 [401]
Richard Kerr, Take One: Film in Canada No. 3 [402]
Douglas Koch csc, Canadian Cinematographer January 2010 [403]
Roman Kroitor, Take One: Film in Canada No. 32 (w/ Marc Glassman) [404]
Harry Lake csc, CSC News September 2008 [405]
Pierre Letarte csc, CSC News January 2009 [406]
Colin Low, part I, Take One: Film in Canada No. 23 (w/ Marc Glassman) [407]
Colin Low, part II, Take One: Film in Canada No. 26 (w/ Marc Glassman) [408]
Stephen Low, Take One: Film in Canada No. 17 [409]
Clark Mackey, Cinema Canada No. 149 [410]
Bruce McDonald, Northernstars (w/ Marc Glassman) [411]
Don McKellar (Childstar), Take One: Film in Canada No. 47 [412]
Michael McMillan, Take One: Film in Canada No. 20 [413]
Deepa Mehta (Camilla), Take One: Film in Canada No. 6 [414]
Deepa Mehta (Bollywood/Hollywood), Take One: Film in Canada No. 23 [415]
Rene Ohashi, Canadian Cinematographer April 2009 [416]
Midi Onodera, Take One: Film in Canada No. 3 [417]
Adam Ostry, Take One: Film in Canada No. 28 [418]
Jeremy Podeswa, Take One: Film in Canada No. 3 [419]
Andreas Poulsson csc, CSC News December 2008 [420]
Alexandra Raffé, Take One: Film in Canada No. 10 [421]
Cynthia Roberts, Take One: Film in Canada No. 3 [422]
Peter Rowe csc, Canadian Cinematographer January 2011 [423]
Su Rynard, Northernstars [424]
Robert Saad csc, CSC News October 2008 [425]
John Walker csc, Canadian Cinematographer September 2011 [426]
Glenn Walton, Take One: Film in Canada No. 3 [427]
Tony Westman csc, Canadian Cinematographer December 2010 [428]
Allan Zweig, Take One: Film in Canada No. 3 [429]
Note: This Chronology first appeared in Take One No. 12, 1996. It has been considerably expanded since then.
1893
April 8, Gladys May Smith, the future Mary Pickford, the movies’ first female megastar, is born on what is now University Avenue, Toronto.
1894
April 14, Andrew and George Holland of Ottawa open the world’s first Kinetoscope parlour in New York City.
1895
The Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis of France, screen the first film for the public in the Salon Indien, Grand Café, Paris, December 28.
1896
The first public screening of a film in Canada takes place on June 28, in Montreal. In July, the Holland brothers introduce Edison’s Vitascope to the Canadian public in Ottawa’s West End Park. Among the scenes shown is The Kiss, starring May Irwin, a Broadway actress from Whitby, Ontario. On August 31 the first screening in Toronto takes place at Robinson’s Musée on Yonge Street.
1897
Films are screened in vaudeville theatres by travelling showmen who tour them from city to city.
Foreign cameramen film in Canada: an Edison crew in B.C. and a crew from Lumière in Ontario and Quebec.
1898
James Freer is the first person to make films in Canada, all depicting life in Manitoba. Some of his films are: Arrival of CPR Express at Winnipeg, Pacific and Atlantic Mail Trains and Six Binders at Work in a Hundred Acre Wheatfield. In 1898, sponsored by the CPR, he tours England with his ‘home movies,’ collectively entitled Ten Years in Manitoba.
The Massey-Harris Company of Toronto commissions the Edison Company to produce films to promote its products. This was the first use of film for advertising purposes.
In December, John Schuberg presents films in Vancouver for the first time.
John Grierson, the future film commissioner of Canada and first head of the National Film Board of Canada, is born in Deanston, Scotland.
1900
Norma Shearer, the future Oscar-winning leading lady at MGM, is born in Montreal.
1901
Guglielmo Marconi successfully transmits a message via radio signals across the Atlantic from Cornwell in England to St. John’s, Newfoundland. The technology of converting radio waves into electrical signals is also applied to the transmission of images – television is radio with pictures.
1902
The Bioscope Company of Halifax, the first Canadian film-production company, produces a series of scenes for Canadian Pacific Railways to encourage British immigration to Canada. (Canadian Pacific would continue this practice for the next 30 years.)
1903
Joseph Rosenthal directs Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway, the first dramatic short to be made in Canada.
Léo-Ernest Ouimet establishes Canada’s first film exchange in Montreal.
Biograph Studios open for business on East 14th Street in New York City. (Biograph would later employ several future Canadian movie stars, including Florence Lawrence, Mary Pickford and Mack Sennett.)
Adolph Zukor, a Hungarian-born entrepreneur, opens his first penny arcades in New York and New Jersey.
Living Canada, a series of 35 films financed by the CPR, is filmed from the fall of 1902 through the summer of 1903 and released in the U.K. in 1903.
1904
George Scott and Co. make The Great Fire of Toronto. This record of the city’s worst fire is first film to be shot in Toronto.
Announcement of the invention of the vacuum tube, essential for radio broadcast, by Englishman John Fleming.
Zukor opens the first of his palatial movie theatres, the Crystal Hall, in New York City.
1905
Billy Bitzer shoots two films for Biograph in Canada: Moose Hunt in New Brunswick and Salmon Fishing in Quebec. (Bitzer would later become D.W. Griffith’s main cinematographer.)
1906
Ouimet opens his ‘Ouimetoscope’ in Montreal, and films the first Canadian newsreels to be shown in his theatre.
The American-born Allen brothers, Jule and Jay, open their first storefront theatre in Brantford, Ontario.
1907
Ouimet opens the largest (1,200 seat) luxury theatre in North America in Montreal.
Scientific American uses the word ‘television’ for the first time to describe the transmission of pictures.
1908
The Allens launch their first film exchange, the Allen Amusement Corporation.
Quebec-born vaudeville actor Mack Sennett appears as an extra in his first film for the Biograph Company, directed by D.W. Griffith. (The prolific Sennett, self-styled ‘King of Comedy’ during the silent era, appeared in 350 films as an actor, produced 730, directed 330 and wrote 90 in a career spanning 27 years, 1908–35. Source: IMDB).
In a move from the East Coast, film production tentatively begins in southern California on a plot of newly developed land just northeast of the City of Los Angeles known locally as ‘Hollywood.’
1909
Mary Pickford appears in The Heart of an Outlaw, her first film for Biograph. (Pickford appeared in 250 films before retiring from acting in 1933.)
1910
An Unselfish Love, produced by Edison Company for the CPR, is one of two surviving dramatic films from the series of 13 produced by the Edison Company for the Canadian Pacific Railroad to promote immigration.
Stunt advertising by the IMP Company introduces the name of Canadian-born Florence Lawrence, previously known as the ‘Biograph Girl,’ to the public, initiating the star system. Lawrence, from Hamilton, Ontario is the world’s first movie star.
1911
Ontario (followed by Quebec and Manitoba) establishes a Board of Censors to regulate the content of motion pictures, the first in North America.
The Allens open their first luxury theatre – the 800-seat Allen Theatre in Calgary.
1912
Mack Sennett releases the first shorts made by his newly formed Keystone Studios in Los Angeles: Cohen Collects a Debt and The Water Nymph.
1913
Evangeline, the first Canadian dramatic feature, is shot in November in Nova Scotia by the Bioscope Company and released in Halifax in 1914
Battle of the Long Sault, the story of an Iroquois attack on Montreal in 1660, is an early Canadian short produced by Americans with a Canadian registered company.
Boards of Censors are established in British Columbia and Alberta.
With the release of The Bangville Police, Mack Sennett introduces the bumbling, slapstick Keystone Cops to the world; British music hall comic Charlie Chaplin signs his first film contact with the Keystone Studios.
The word ‘movies’ is now in common usage.
1914
At the outbreak of the First World War, the failure of the United States to enter the war results in a swell of anti-Americanism. Provincial censor boards ban or attempt to curtail ‘excessive’ display of the American flag in American films. (The U.S. entered the war in 1917.)
Norman McLaren, Canada’s most famous and gifted animator, founder of the animation department at the NFB, is born in Sterling, Scotland.
1915
Léo-Ernest Ouimet launches Specialty Film Import, with a distribution network from coast to coast. (Ouiment’s film career came to an end with bankruptcy in 1922.)
Connes Till Film Co. of Toronto releases three dramatic shorts, directed by and starring Americans: Canada in War and Peace, His Awakening and On the King’s Highway.
1916
Zukor joins forces with Jesse Lasky to form Famous Players-Lasky with the rights to distribute Mary Pickford films through Paramount Pictures. With a massive loan from the Morgan Bank, Zukor embarks on an ambitious plan to dominate the industry by acquiring motion picture theatres right across North America.
Minneapolis-born N.L. Nathanson buys his first theatre in Toronto, the Majestic Theatre on Adelaide Street, with the backing of wealthy partners. (Nathanson built Paramount Theatres, a theatre chain that rivalled that of the Allens.)
The Canadian government enters film production by creating the War Office Cinematographic Committee.
Canadian-born Albert Christie and his brother Charles establish The Christie Film Company in Los Angeles to produce low-budget comics shorts.
1917
Ontario establishes the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau (OMPB), the first public film board in North America, ‘to carry out educational work for farmers, school children, factory workers and other classes.’
Mrs. Ray Lewis founds the Canadian Moving Picture Digest, Canada’s first weekly film trade journal. (She remained editor and publisher until her death in 1954.)
Mary Pickford is the highest-paid actress in Hollywood and one of the richest women in the world. The popularity of her ‘Little Mary’ character is rivalled only by Chaplin’s ‘Little Tramp.’
Mack Sennett leaves the company he founded to become an independent producer.
Canadian National Features of Toronto opens the first film studio in Canada in Trenton, Ontario.
1918
The Allens now own the largest and most modern chain of theatres in Canada and have exclusive rights to distribute Goldwyn and Famous Players-Lasky films in Canada.
1919
Nell Shipman, from Victoria, B.C. writes and stars in Back to God’s Country, the most successful silent Canadian film at the box office. Shot in the Northwest Territories, Alberta and California, it is the first of seven silent films produced by her husband, Ernest Shipman. (Nell left Ernest shortly after the completion of Back to God’s Country and settled in the U.S. where she was one of the first woman to write and direct films under her own company banner.)
Zukor sets his sights on Canada and refuses to renegotiate his distribution agreement with the Allens unless they take him into partnership. The Allens refuse.
Mary Pickford forms United Artists with Charles Chaplin, D.W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks as partners, Hollywood’s first actor-owned studio.
1920
The Canadian Pacific Railway incorporates Associated Screen News of Canada (ASN) in Montreal. (For the next 38 years, ASN was the leading Canadian producer of newsreels, shorts and industrials.)
Adolf Zukor buys a substantial part of Paramount Theatres, the rival Canadian chain operated by Nathanson, and incorporates Famous Players Canadian Corporation (FPCC). The Allens, however, continue to grow and expand into the United States.
Mary Pickford marries her business partner, Douglas Fairbanks, forming Hollywood’s first power couple. They call their home in the Hollywood hills ‘Pickfair.’
American Robert Flaherty films Nanook of the North in the Canadian Arctic, the most famous and influential film made in Canada. It is released in 1922 to worldwide critical acclaim.
1922
The Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association (CMPDA) is formed. (Although Canadian in name, the association consisted of the Canadian offices of the American distribution majors and was in essence a branch of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America.)
The Allen brothers go bankrupt after an intense bidding war with FPCC.
16 mm becomes the standard film stock for amateur filmmakers.
1923
The Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau is established in Ottawa with Raymond Peck at its head. Its purpose is to advertise Canada abroad with ‘scenic attractions’ and distribute Canadian pictures in Canada.
FPCC buys all 53 of the Allen theatres at a bargain-basement price.
Zukor is named in a complaint issued by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission: ‘Famous Players-Lasky Corp. now possesses and exercises a dominating control over the motion picture industry [and] is the largest theater owner in the world.’
Warner Bros. is incorporated by the four Warner brothers – Harry, Albert, Sam and Canadian-born Jack.
1924
The Ontario Motion Picture Bureau purchases the studios at Trenton (which had been closed for four years) in an effort to produce films ‘for the purpose of preserving Canadian traditions.’ In an opening speech, the provincial treasurer notes: ‘Not one per cent of the pictures shown in Canada are made in Great Britain and not one per cent are Canadian made.’ (The Bureau financed its one and only feature-length film, Cinderella of the Farms, in 1931.)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) is formed by a combination of the Metro Pictures Corporation, the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and independent producer Louis B. Mayer. (Mayer, often mistakenly identified as Canadian, was born in Minsk, then in Russia, and spent part of this childhood growing up in Bathurst, New Brunswick.)
Albert Tessier, an ordained Catholic priest, makes the first of his short, silent films, which he screens in church basements and school auditoriums, providing his own commentary. The best of them are poetic evocations of forests, rivers, lakes that reveal his commitment to the rural roots of Quebec and the Catholic religion. (Tessier would make some 70 films, 1924–56. An award in his name is given annually to individuals for an outstanding career in Quebec cinema.)
1925
The Film Society is established in London, England, setting the model for film societies worldwide.
1926
January 27, Scottish engineering genius John L. Baird gives the first public demonstration of a television system in the United Kingdom.
Thirteen private radio broadcasters found the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB). (CAB became the leading lobby voice for the private broadcasting industry. It folded in 2010.)
1927
A fire in the Laurier Palace Theatre in Montreal results in the death of 78 children. The Catholic Church in Quebec demands (and gets) a ban on children under 16 from attending cinemas. (The ban remained in place until 1961.)
The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is formed; founders include Mary Pickford, Louis B. Mayer and Douglas Fairbanks.
Premiere of The Jazz Singer, the first all-synchronized feature film using dialogue.
1928
Carry on, Sergeant! opens in Toronto. Directed and written by noted British cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather, it’s the most costly film in the history of Canadian silent cinema and fails miserably at the box office.
Bill Oliver directs and shoots The Beaver People, the first of a series of shorts featuring the legendary Grey Owl.
Britain passes a bill calling for 25 per cent of all films exhibited in Britain to be British-made by 1935. A British film is defined as one ‘made by British subjects in a studio in the British Empire.’
John Grierson is appointed head of the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit in Great Britain.
In the Shadow of the Pole, shot by Richard Finnie, is the first notable documentary from Canadian Motion Picture Bureau.
1929
Sir John Aird, chairman of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, delivers a report to Parliament calling for public ownership of Canadian broadcasting. Graham Spry, founder of the Canadian Radio League (an organization that played a major role in the establishment of public broadcasting) issues his famous dictum, ‘the state or the States.’
The Bell Telephone labs in the United States demonstrate colour television transmission.
1930
Through his holding company Paramount Publix, Zukor acquires direct control of FPCC; FPCC, which owns one-third of all the theatres in Canada, is now 100 per cent American owned. Under the Federal Combines Investigation Act, Prime Minister Bennett appoints Peter White to investigate more than 100 complaints against American film interests operating in Canada. White’s report concludes that FPCC is a combine ‘detrimental to the Public Interest.’ The provinces of Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia take FPCC and the American distribution cartel to court in Ontario.
Mary Pickford wins best actress at the second Academy Awards presentation at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles for her performance in Coquette.
George Melford and American millionaire adventurer Varick Frissell shoot The Viking, a drama involving the seal hunt, in Newfoundland, then an English colony. It blends fiction and dramatic documentary footage, and is released in 1931 after Frissell and his crew died in an accidental explosion while filming pickup shots.
Claude Jutra, the future director of Mon oncle Antoine, is born in Montreal.
1931
Ontario passes the British Film Quota Act but never enforces its provisions.
Norma Shearer wins the best actress at the Academy Awards for The Divorcee; her brother Douglas Shearer wins the first-ever Academy Award for sound recording. (This is the only time in the history of the Academy that a brother and sister have won awards at the same ceremony.)
1932
After a lengthy trial, FPCC and other defendants are found not guilty on three counts of ‘conspiracy and combination.’ A decision against the U.S. cartel would have been a historic turning point for the future of filmmaking in Canada but it was not to be.
The Ontario Board of Censors imposes a newsreel quota and insists on the inclusion of a percentage of Canadian and British footage. (This quota remained in force as long as newsreels were shown in Ontario.)
Gordon Sparling directs The Pathfinder, his first theatrical short in the Canadian Cameo series for ASN. (From 1932–54, 85 shorts were released theatrically in the series, with topics ranging from winter sports to lyrical nature films. The most famous of these is Rhapsody in Two Languages, released in 1934.)
The Parliament of Canada passes the first Broadcasting Act, creating the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC) to engage in broadcasting and to regulate all broadcasting in Canada.
J. Alphonse Ouimet of Montreal, one of the few Canadian television pioneers, builds a prototype television receiver.
Eastman Kodak introduces 8-mm film, cameras and projectors.
In Britain, the periodical quarterlies Sight & Sound and Film Quarterly begin publication.
Ontario-born Canadian comedian Marie Dressler wins a best actress Academy Award for her performance in Min and Bill. Mack Sennett wins an Oscar in the novelty short category.
1933
Fay Wray, from Cardston, Alberta, finds cinematic immortality screaming atop the Empire State Building in King Kong.
Mack Sennett Productions ceases operations due to bankruptcy.
1934
Mitchell Hepburn’s Liberal government closes down the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau and the Trenton studios are donated to the city of Trenton for a community hall – a sad end to one of Canada’s earliest and busiest film studios.
Quebec priest/filmmaker Maurice Proulx begins work on En pas neuf, a record of the provincial government’s attempts to settle the remote Abitibi region of northwest Quebec with poor and homeless city people during the Great Depression. (It is now regarded as a unique record of pre-Quiet Revolution Quebec and a precursor to Quebec’s documentary tradition.)
J. Alphonse Ouimet joins the CRBC as an engineer. (He became president in 1953.)
1935
Nat Taylor forms the Independent Theatres Association of Ontario.
The National Film Society of Canada is founded. (In 1950 the organization was renamed the Canadian Film Institute.)
Mary Pickford divorces Douglas Fairbanks.
1936
Columbia Pictures establishes Central Films of Victoria British Columbia. (From 1936–8, this company made 14 B movies – ‘quota quickies‘ – for the British market with such rising stars as Rita Hayworth.)
ASN builds Canada’s largest sound studio in Montreal.
Vancouver-born Richard Day wins his first of seven Academy Awards for art direction on The Dark Angel.
1937
Philco demonstrates the first high-resolution television picture, using 411 scan lines. (The current standard is 525 in North America and Japan, and 625 in Europe.)
1938
John Grierson is invited to Canada to study government film production. His report leads to the creation of the Nation Film Board of Canada (NFB).
The British quota system is revised to exclude films made in the Commonwealth.
Mack Sennett is awarded an Honorary Oscar.
1939
Parliament passes the National Film Act creating the NFB. John Grierson becomes Canada’s first film commissioner and the NFB concludes distribution agreements with FPCC and The March of Time in the United States. Grierson appoints Stuart Legg, a documentary filmmaker from England, as first director of production. (At first the NFB hires foreign directors, mostly from England, including Raymond Spottiswoode, Boris Kaufman and Joris Ivens.)
Budge and Judith Crawley shoot their first sponsored film, Canadian Power, for the Canadian Geographical Society.
RCA begins regular television broadcasting in America. Franklin Roosevelt is the first president to appear on American television. (With the advent of the war in Europe, virtually all television development was brought to a halt.)
Winnipeg-born Deanna Durbin shares an Academy Award with Mickey Rooney for ‘bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth.’
1940
With the release of Atlantic Patrol, the NFB launches its first theatrical series, Canada Carries On.
Encouraged by Grierson, celebrated British director Michael Powell shoots the wartime drama The 49th Parallel in Quebec. (This film, which starred Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard and Raymond Massey, was an effective piece of propaganda and received an Academy Award nomination for best picture.)
1941
The CGMPB is absorbed by the NFB. Norman McLaren is hired to organize the NFB’s animation unit. His first film for the Board is Mail Early. (From 1941–5 the staff at the Board grows from 50 to over 700. They were hired not necessarily for their filmmaking ability but intellectual agility and adherence to Grierson’s worldview of cinema’s social purpose.)
Quebec establishes Le Service de Cinéphotographie de la Province de Québec, a central organization to coordinate film activity in the province.
N.L. Nathanson, a founding board member of FPCC, leaves to form Odeon Theatres, with his son, Paul, as the titular head of the company.
Exhibitor Nat Taylor and publisher Hye Bossin launch The Canadian Film Weekly. (It ceased publication in 1970.)
Denys Arcand, director of the Oscar-winning Les Invasion barbares, is born in Deschambault, Quebec.
1942
The NFB launches its second wartime series, The World in Action. The Board also creates the department of animation under the direction of McLaren and organizes film circuits to bring films to rural areas, factories and town halls.
Jane Marsh (later Beveridge) directs the first films for the Board by a woman, Inside Fighting Canada and Women Are Warriors.
The NFB wins its first Academy Award for Churchill’s Island in the newly created documentary category.
1943
The NFB opens offices in London, Chicago and New York.
The first dramatic sound feature shot in Quebec, À la croisée des chemins, is released. (It was a Roman Catholic propaganda film made for the express purpose of creating a missionary calling in Quebec.)
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is founded. (The Golden Globe Awards are established in 1946.)
David Cronenberg is born in Toronto.
1944
The establishment of Renaissance Films in Montreal marks the beginning of commercial feature-film production in Quebec; its first film is Le Père Chopin.
The animated series Chants populaires / Let’s All Sing Together begins at the NFB, supervised by Norman McLaren. (Animators included George Dunning, Colin Low, Grant Munro and René Jodoin.)
1945
John Grierson resigns his position as Canada’s film commissioner.
Paul Nathanson and the Rank Organization open the Queensway Studios outside of Toronto.
Vancouver-born animator Stephen Bosustow, formerly with Disney, launches United Productions of America (UPA), a production company whose animated creations will include Gerald McBoing-Boing and Mister Magoo.
1946
Grierson’s name appears in Igor Gouzenko’s spy papers and is suspected of having communist sympathies; in the Cold War atmosphere of suspicion, the NFB is also implicated.
Quebec Productions of St-Hyacinthe, near Montreal, shoots Whispering City / La Forteresse, the first Canadian feature in both English and French.
Budge and Judith Crawley incorporate Crawley Films in Ottawa. (During the next 35 years, Crawley Films produced over 2,500 films and won more than 200 awards, making it the largest private producer of documentaries, industry shorts, television series and features of its day.)
Paul Nathanson retires from Odeon and sells his interest in the company to the Rank Organization. Now both the major exhibition chains in Canada are foreign-owned.
In the first move to classify films in North America, the Ontario Board of Censors imposes an ‘Adult Entertainment’ rating in Ontario.
Opening of the first Cannes Film Festival – originally planned for 1939 but postponed on account of the war.
1947
Business in Canada booms as wartime industry converts to peace. Everything that’s sold to Europe is sold on credit, while Canada must buy U.S. goods with dollars. Liberal finance minister Douglas Abbott meets asks FPCC and the CMPDA to spend some of their money on Canadian production facilities.
Ross McLean is appointed film commissioner. The NFB launches Eye Witness, a series of theatrical shorts. (The series ran 11 years and came to an end in 1958.)
Michael Zahorchak opens Canada’s first drive-in theatre, in Stoney Creek, near Hamilton, Ontario.
Nova Scotia-born Harold Russell lost both his hands in a hand-grenade explosion while serving as a U.S. paratrooper in the Second World War. His one-shot performance in William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives wins him an Oscar for best supporting actor. He is also given a second Oscar ‘for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans.’
1948
Minister of Trade and Commerce, Clarence D. Howe, meets with the Motion Picture Association of America and accepts to the infamous Canadian Cooperation Project. Hollywood promises to make films in Canada, distribute more NFB work stateside, export fewer ‘low-toned’ gangster films to Canada and make reference to Canada in feature films. FPCC’s profits are not restricted and the idea of an exhibition quota is dropped.
Nat Taylor opens North America’s first twin cinema in Ottawa.
CBC Radio launches ‘This Week at the Movies’ with host Gerald Pratley, the first radio program to deal seriously with film appreciation.
The first professional film association, the Association of Motion Picture Producers and Laboratories of Canada, is created in Toronto, as is the Toronto Film Society.
In August, the first television seen in Canada is shown at the Canadian National Exhibition; in October, patrons of the Horseshoe Tavern in downtown Toronto watch the World Series on television via a signal provided by WBEN-TV out of Buffalo, New York.
1949
Allegations concerning the existence of communist cells in the NFB are spearheaded by a Red-scare press campaign and the Opposition in Parliament. Ross McLean resigns as film commissioner and the Department of National Defence refuses to allow NFB personnel to work on Defence films. The Board gives into pressure and allows the RCMP to secretly review employees’ files.
Former NFB animators Jim MacKay and George Dunning establish Graphic Associates, Canada’s first private animation studio, in Toronto.
The Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (the Massey Commission) is appointed by Parliament.
The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science institutes the Foreign-Language Film Award.
Toronto-born Walter Huston wins best supporting actor Oscar for his performance in Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Crawley Films wins film of the year for The Loon’s Necklace at the inaugural Canadian Film Awards held in Ottawa.
1950
A new National Film Act (replacing the 1939 Act) gives the NFB a mandate ‘to interpret Canada to Canadians and to other nations.’ Arthur Irwin, former editor of Maclean’s magazine, is appointed film commissioner.
The National Film Society becomes the Canadian Film Institute in Ottawa and creates the first film archive in Canada.
The Yorkton (Saskatchewan) Film Council holds the inaugural International 16-mm documentary film festival, the first film festival in North America.
James Cameron, the future director of the highest-grossing film of all time, Avator, is born in Kapauskasing, Ontario.
1951
The Massey Commission submits its report, calling for continued support for the NFB, the creation of the Canada Council and the establishment of a television system based on the concept of public monopoly with a private component.
With Mary Pickford as host, Léo-Ernest Ouimet is given an award at the third Canadian Film Awards, in recognition of his pioneering work in distribution, exhibition and production.
Nat Taylor publishes the first Film Weekly Yearbook of the Canadian Motion Picture Industry, edited by Hye Bossin.
The NFB films the future Queen Elizabeth and her husband’s visit to Canada and the U.S. in the fall of 1951. The resulting one-hour film, Royal Journey, released theatrically in 1952, is the most popular made by the NFB to date and released in 40 foreign markets.
Stephen Bosustow receives the short/cartoon Academy Award for Gerald McBoing-Boing.
1952
Canadian television goes on air on September 6 in Montreal (CBFT) and on September 8 in Toronto (CBLT). Each station offers about 18 hours of programming a week. There are 146,000 households with television sets in Canada.
“The Big Revue,” the English network’s flagship and first variety program, premieres in September. (The series was produced under the supervision of Mavor Moore and directed by Norman Jewison; the first dramatic production was ‘Sunshine Sketches,’ base on Stephen Leacock’s popular Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.)
“Hockey Night in Canada” / ”La Soriée du Hockey” goes on air; the first games are broadcast October 11 on the French networks (Montreal vs Detroit) and November 1 on the English network (Toronto vs Boston). (The national tradition became the longest running and the most popular show in the history of Canadian television.)
Colin Low is appointed director of the animation department at the NFB and his The Romance of Transportation in Canada wins the Palme d'Or for animated short at the Cannes Film Festival.
Alfred Hitchcock shoots I Confess with Montgomery Clift and Anne Baxter in Quebec City.
Budge Crawley’s Newfoundland Scene wins film of the year at the CFAs and Royal Journey the award for best feature.
1953
The Ontario Board of Censors introduces the first ‘X’ rating in North America – for people 18 years and older. (The name of this classification was later changed to ‘Restricted.’)
The CBC/SRC is the first system in North America to broadcast complete coverage of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, four hours after the ceremony ended in London.
Roger Lemelin’s “La Famille Plouffe,” a hit from radio, goes on air in Montreal and immediately become the most popular show on the French network. (At its peak, Quebec’s first téléroman attracted a weekly audience of four million.)
“Tabloid,” an early public affairs program with interviews and weather forecasts hosted by Percy Saltzman, goes on air in Toronto. “General Motors Theatre,” also out of Toronto, and produced by Sydney Newman, presents original Canadian drama, including Ted Allan’s Lies My Father Told Me (which was later adapted into a feature) and Lister Sinclair’s The Blood Is Strong.
CBUT, the CBC-TV film unit in Vancouver, is set up, attracting young filmmakers such as Allan King and Daryl Duke.
The NFB produces On the Spot, its first series for television under the direction of Bernard Devlin. (The series is also produced in French under the title Sur le sif the following year.)
Neighbours wins the NFB its second Academy Award and Colin Low’s The Romance of Transportation in Canada wins the Palme d'Or for animation at Cannes.
Tit-coq wins film of the year and best feature at the Canadian Film Awards.
1954
Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster, long-time favourites on CBC radio, make their television debut. (At the height of their fame Wayne and Shuster topped a North American critic’s poll as the best television comic act, and they appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” a record 67 times. Their last appearance on the CBC was in October 1988.)
A 50 per cent capital cost allowance (CCA) is introduced to encourage private investment in Canadian film companies.
The Duplessis government in Quebec government forbids the screening of ‘federalist’ NFB films in Quebec schools.
Dorothy Burritt and Guy L. Coté found the Canadian Federation of Film Societies.
Colin Low’s Corral wins first prize for documentary at the Venice Film Festival.
Christopher Chapman’s Seasons wins film of the year at the CFAs.
1955
Two former NFB filmmakers, Marcel and Réal Racicot, produce Quebec’s first animated feature, Le Village enchanté.
The NFB launches the documentary series Passe-partout.
Le Centre Catholique du Cinéma de Montréal publishes the first issue of Séquences.
The opening of Parliament in Ottawa is broadcast live on television for the first time.
The Royal Commission on Broadcasting is appointed with Robert Fowler as chair.
McLaren’s Blinkity Blank wins the Palme d'Or for animation at Cannes and the first prize for animation at the British Academy Awards.
Stephen Bosustow receives his second Oscar for When Magoo Flew.
The Stratford Adventure wins film of the year and best feature at the Canadian Film Awards.
1956
The NFB moves its headquarters from Ottawa to the suburbs of Montreal. The move rejuvenates production.
Anne of Green Gables, a musical written by Don Harron and Norman Campbell, is broadcast on the CBC; now 50 per cent of Canadian households have a television set.
Mary Pickford is the last of the original United Artists to sell her interest in the company.
1957
On July 1 a special television program is broadcast to mark the opening of coast-to-coast microwave service. With links from Victoria, British Columbia, to Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada now has the longest television network in the world.
In October, the NFB and CBC/SRC cover Queen Elizabeth’s address to the nation from Ottawa and the first opening of a Canadian Parliament by a reigning monarch.
Guy Roberge is appointed film commissioner, the first French Canadian to hold the post at the NFB. With the Panoramique series, the Board finds itself more involved in fiction films.
“Front Page Challenge” goes on air for the first time. (This show was created by writer John Aylesworth and developed by producer Harvey Hart, with Fred Davis as moderator. It was originally planned as a summer replacement but it became one of the most popular and longest-running panel shows in North America.)
Sidney J. Furie shoots A Dangerous Age (originally planned as a CBC production) in Toronto.
The Canadian Moving Picture Digest ceases publication after 42 years.
The Canadian Society of Cinematographers is formed in Toronto.
The NFB’s City of Gold wins first prize for documentary film at Cannes; Norman McLaren’s A Chairy Tale, featuring Claude Jutra and a pixillated chair, takes top honours for experimental film at Venice and is nominated for an Academy Award.
Stephen Bosustow receives his third Oscar for Mister Magoo’s Puddle Jumper.
1958
The future cream of Quebec cinema – Gilles Groulx, Gilles Carle, Claude Fournier, Marcel Carrière, Georges Dufaux, Clémont Perron, Michel Brault, Bernard Gosselin, Claude Jutra – embark on their careers at the new NFB headquarters in Montreal. The facility has the largest sound stage in the world outside of Hollywood.
With the release of Les Raquetteurs, Michel Brault and Gilles Groulx become pioneers in a movement that is known as direct-cinema in Quebec or more commonly in English Canada as cinéma-vérité. (This portable, realistic approach to filmmaking held sway over the documentary movement in Canada for more than a generation.)
A Dangerous Age is released theatrically in England, but can’t find Canadian distribution. Director Sidney J. Furie moves to England and tells the British press: ‘I wanted to start a Canadian film industry, but nobody cared.’
The Fowler Report results in the Broadcasting Act, which establishes the Board of Broadcast Governors (BBG) to regulate all Canadian broadcasting and sets the stage for the licensing of private broadcasters. The BBG requires all television broadcasters to show a minimum of 45 per cent Canadian content.
ASN, Canada’s longest-running film production company, closes down.
Al Sens opens his animation studio, the first in Vancouver.
The NFB’s City of Gold wins film of the year at the CFAs.
1959
Nat Taylor opens the Toronto International Film Studios in Kleinberg, Ontario near Toronto, with two of the largest private sound stages in Canada.
Candid Eye, an influential series of 14 NFB direct-cinema documentaries, is broadcast on the CBC over two seasons
In co-production with the BBC, Crawley Films of Ottawa launches “The R.C.M.P.” series in both French and English.
”Don Messer’s Jubilee” goes on air from Halifax. (Over its 10-year lifespan, this show became one of the most beloved programs ever produced by the CBC.)
The microwave CBC/SRC network is extended to Newfoundland.
1960
The BBG licenses four private broadcasters to compete with the CBC/SRC: Télé-Métropole and CFCF in Montreal; CFTO in Toronto; BCTV in Vancouver.
”The Nature of Things” premieres. (This program, the flagship of the CBC’s science unit, became one of the network’s most successful productions in terms of longevity, audience appeal, and international sales.)
The Montreal International Film Festival is launched.
At Cannes, The Back-Breaking Leaf wins top prize for television documentary and Universe wins the Jury Prize for animation.
1961
The CTV Network goes on air in October. (CTV, Canada’s largest private television network, was set up as a rather unmanageable cooperative. Each owner, no matter how many stations they owned, had a veto and a single vote on the executive board. After decades of corporate machinations, Toronto-based Baton Broadcasting took over ownership in 1997.)
Nat Taylor produces and directs The Mask. (This 3D film was the first Canadian movie to be extensively shown in the United States, distributed by Warner Bros.)
Quebec schools are once again allowed to screen NFB films.
The Service de Ciné-photographie de la province de Québec becomes the Office de film du Québec.
Universe wins film of the year at the CFAs.
1962
Budge Crawley produces his first feature, Amanita Pestilens. (The film was the first screen appearance of Geneviève Bujold, the first Canadian feature filmed in colour, and the first to be shot simultaneously in English and French. It was never released theatrically in Canada.) Crawley Films also produces “The Tales of the Wizard of Oz,” the first animated series for television.
1963
The Liberal government in Ottawa establishes an Inter-Departmental Committee on the Possible Development of a Feature Film Industry in Canada with NFB film commissioner Guy Roberge as chair.
Don Owen directs Nobody Waved Good-Bye for the NFB, the first film to give Toronto a cinematic identity; Claude Jutra does the same or Montreal with À tout prendre. (À tout prendre is a landmark Canadian film in many ways, combining as it does cinéma-vérité techniques, a distinct Québécois voice, independent production values and intellectualism that are poles apart from the commercial North American cinema of its day.)
Drylanders, the first feature-length movie made at the NFB, is released.
Produced by the NFB and directed by Pierre Perrault and Michel Brault, Pour la suite du monde is broadcast on SRC and draws an audience of 500,000. (Pour la suite du monde was the first of a trilogy of cinéma-vérité films made by Perrault about the people of the isolated Île-aux-Coudres. The other two are Le Règne du jour, 1966, and Voitures d’eau, 1968.).
Don Haig establishes Film Arts as an editing and post-production facility in Toronto, with the CBC as its biggest customer.
Canada signs its first official international co-production agreement with France.
Lonely Boy wins film of the year at the CFAs.
1964
The theatrical release of Nobody Waved Good-Bye in Toronto marks the beginning of an English-Canadian feature-film culture. (The film opened first in New York; after favourable reviews the NFB agreed to its release in Canada.)
“This Hour Has Seven Days” premieres on the CBC. (This one-hour weekly show, produced by Douglas Leiterman and Patrick Watson, became one of the most controversial and influential shows ever run on the CBC. Its original mix of satirical music, investigative reports and confrontational and aggressive interviews made it hugely popular. At its peak in March 1966, its ratings were second only to “Hockey Night in Canada.”)
The NFB restructures production along linguistic lines. Pierre Juneau is appointed the first director of French production and Grant McLean becomes director of English production. (However, some of its finest French-Canadian talent, including Gilles Carle, Michel Brault, Arthur Lamothe, Bernard Gosselin and Gilles Groulx, leave the NFB, denouncing it for its limits on freedom of expression, its refusal to embark on feature-film production and its colonial role in Quebec. Most of the filmmakers go into private production or television.)
Guy L Coté and Michel Patenaude found La Cinémathèque canadienne.
The Yorkton Short Film Festival begins in Saskatchewan.
The federal cabinet approves in principle the establishment of a loan fund to foster and promote the development of a feature-film fund.
The Committee on Broadcasting, chaired by Robert Fowler, is established.
Pour la suite du monde wins film of the year at the CFAs and Claude Jutra’s À tout prendre wins best feature film.
1965
The Report of Film Distribution: Practices, Problems and Prospects by O.J. Firestone, is released. (The Report recommended an increase in the CCA allowed to producers, the initiation of joint international film agreements and the establishment of a film development corporation. Most of Firestone’s recommendations were eventually adopted but never as a comprehensive package.)
The Luck of Ginger Coffey wins the best feature film at the CFAs.
1966
The CBC brass cancels “This Hour Has Seven Days.” Patrick Watson is taken off air and his co-host, Laurier LaPierre, is fired for crying over a story about the Stephen Truscott trial. The forerunner to “W5” and “60 Minutes” comes to an abrupt and controversial end.
CTV launches “W5.” (This program is now the longest-running public affairs program in North America.)
“Wojeck,” with John Vernon as a crusading coroner, runs on the CBC for two seasons. (The series, shot on the streets of Toronto using cinéma-vérité techniques, set new standards for realistic drama.)
The Mills of the Gods: Viet Nam is broadcast on CBC’s Documentary series and wins film of the year at the Canadian Film Awards.
The original Take One magazine, published and edited by Peter Lebensold and Adam Symansky from Montreal, makes its debut. (The magazine later moved to Toronto and published until 1979.)
The NFB’s Le Festin des morts wins best feature film at the CFAs.
1967
The NFB presents Labyrinth, a groundbreaking multi-screen presentation at Expo 67.
The CBC begins broadcasting in colour.
Allan King establishes Allan King Associates in Toronto and completes Warrendale, which is screened at the Cannes Film Festival after the CBC turned it down for broadcast. It wins film of the year and best feature film at the Canadian Film Awards.
Anne Claire Poirier directs De mère en fille, the first NFB feature-length docudrama to be directed by a woman.
The Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, the first of the alternative distribution cooperatives to spring-up across the country, is established in Toronto.
The last Montreal International Film Festival is held.
Michael Show, Canada’s leading ‘experimental’ filmmaker, shoots his most famous film, Wavelength, a groundbreaking 45-minute zoom, in a New York City loft.
Norman Jewison receives an Academy Award nomination for his direction of the U.S. racial drama In the Heat of the Night; the film wins five Academy Awards, including best picture.
1968
The Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC) opens for business in February with a budget of $10 million, (However, because no effort was made to affect the distribution and exhibition of films in Canada, the films financed by the CFDC were seen by few Canadians.)
The 1967–8 Broadcasting Act creates the Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRTC), with Pierre Juneau as the first chairman. The CRTC exercises almost total judiciary control – although its decisions can be appealed to the cabinet – over broadcasting regulations in Canada. Every broadcaster must renew its license on a schedule determined by the Commission, and the CRTC has the authority to impose Canadian content regulations on the nation’s airwaves. (In 1976, when the federal government transferred telecommunications from the Canadian Transport Commission to the CRTC, the name was changed to Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.)
Roman Kroitor (from the NFB), Graeme Ferguson and Robert Kerr form the Multiscreen Corporation to make films in the new IMAX format.
FPCC is dissolved and replaced by Famous Players Ltd., owned 51 per cent of which is owned by Gulf+Western (Canada) Ltd., which in turn is wholly owned by Gulf+Western in the United States.
Toronto-born, NFB-trained animator George Dunning directs Yellow Submarine, a feature-length animated film based on the music by The Beatles.
The Canadian Film Awards are reorganized to include craft and acting awards. A Place to Stand wins film of the year (also the Oscar for live-action short), and The Ernie Game, a rare co-production between the NFB and CBC, is named best feature film.
1969
Donald Shebib films Goin’ down the Road on the streets of Toronto with a minuscule budget.
The Challenge for Change program is formally established as a studio within the NFB with a specific mandate from the federal Cabinet ‘to prepare Canadians for social change’ using film, video and other media.
Jacques Godbout is appointed director of French production at the NFB.
The release of Valérie, directed by Denis Héroux, launches the mini-boom of sexploitation films in Quebec known as ‘Maple Syrup Porn.’
The Ontario Board of Censors bans The Columbus of Sex, produced by Ivan Reitman and Dan Goldberg; it is the first Canadian film to be banned.
The first Canadian Student Film Festival is held at Sir George Williams University in Montreal.
Gerald Pratley founds the Ontario Film Institute.
The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar is named film of the year at the Canadian Film Awards.
Don’t Let the Angels Fall, directed by George Kaczender, is the first Canadian feature to be officially invited to Cannes to compete for the Palme d'Or.
1970
Sydney Newman is appointed film commissioner. (With events of the October Crisis unfolding, Newman suppresses several films including Denys Arcand’s On est au coton, a gritty, realistic exposé of Quebec’s garment industry. It is finally released in 1976.)
The first film to partially use IMAX technology is Tiger Child, directed by Donald Brittain and projected at the World Fair in Osaka, Japan.
TVOntario goes on air, using the first UHF television channel for broadcast in Canada.
Edmonton-born Arthur Hiller receives an Academy Award nomination for directing Love Story, one of the most popular Weepies ever made in Hollywood.
The animated film To See or Not to See wins film of the year and Goin’ down the Road wins best feature film at the Canadian Film Awards.
1971
Mon oncle Antoine wins best feature film at the Canadian Film Awards and the Gold Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival, establishing Claude Jutra as Canada’s most accomplished feature-film director.
La Cinémathèque Canadienne becomes La Cinémathèque Québécoise with Robert Daudelin as director.
L’Association Coopérative des Productions Audio-Visuelles (ACPAV) is founded in Montreal with Marc Daigle as director.
The Nelvana Studios opens in Toronto. (This company, founded by Michael Hirsh, Clive Smith and Patrick Loubert grew to become Canada’s most successful animation house.)
Graeme Ferguson’s North of Superior, the first film to be completely shot in the IMAX process, is shown at Ontario Place in Toronto, the first facility in the world built especially to screen the large-format films.
The first Canadian dramatic feature to be directed by a woman, Sylvia Spring’s Madelaine Is…, receives limited distribution.
Norman Jewison receives his second Academy Award nomination for Fiddler on the Roof.
1972
The highlight of the year is ‘The Big Broadcast of 1972’: the first Canada/Russia hockey series draws a total audience of more than half the population of Canada when Paul Henderson wins the last game and the series with a dramatic last-minute goal.
The Ontario Ministry of Industry and Tourism appoints producer John Bassett to head a task force to study the Canadian film industry. Bassett concludes that ‘a basic film industry exists. It’s the audiences that need to be nurtured through theatrical exposure. The optimum method of accomplishing this is to establish a quota system for theatres.’
The Council of Canadian Filmmakers (CCFM), an ad-hoc group representing unions, ACTRA, the Directors Guild and the Toronto Filmmakers’ Co-op, is formed.
Cinema Canada magazine is launched in Toronto by George Csaba Koller and Philip McPhedran.
Kathleen Shannon begins Working Mothers, a series of shorts for the Challenge for Change program. It’s the Board’s first commitment to feminist filmmaking.
La Vié rêvée, the first Quebec fictional feature directed by a woman (Mireille Danereau), receives theatrical distribution.
Denys Arcand directs La Maudite Galette, his first dramatic feature.
Robert Lantos forms his first distribution company, Vivafilm, with his close friend Victor Loewry upon graduating from McGill University.
Anik-1 is launched in November. The orbit of this satellite is such that it can always broadcast to the entire land surface of Canada, providing television and radio service from the 49th parallel to the far North. ‘Anik’ is the Inukitut word for ‘brother.’
The CBC premieres “The Beachcombers,” starring Bruno Gerussi. (The series was the first to be shot entirely on the West Coast. It became one of the CBC’s more successful, and longest-running, dramas and was sold around the world.)
The Pacific Cinematheque is formed in Vancouver.
John Grierson dies in England at the age of 73.
Léo-Ernest Ouimet dies in Montreal.
Wedding in White wins best feature film at the Canadian Film Awards.
1973
The Canadian Film Awards, held in Montreal for the first time, are boycotted by L’Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices de films du Québec. Slipstream wins best feature film.
Harold Greenberg buys Astral Films. (The company later became Astral Bellevue Pathé.)
Cry of the Wild is released theatrically and quickly becomes one of the most successful NFB features ever made.
The Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association is incorporated.
The Public Archives of Canada establishes the National Film Archives Division.
The first and only International Festival of Women and Film is held in Toronto.
1974
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz wins the Golden Bear (first prize) at the Berlin Film Festival – the first Canadian feature to win at a major European film festival – and Mordecai Richler receives an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay. (The Canadian Film Awards were cancelled in 1974. The Apprenticeship was awarded best feature film for 1974 at the CFAs in 1975.)
The CCFM issues the ‘Winnipeg Manifesto,’ calling for quotas and for ‘radical and creative solutions’ to the problem of getting Canadian films shown in Canada.
The federal government increases the CCA for films to 100 per cent. The concept of certification for a Canadian film is introduced. It is the beginning of what will become known as the ‘tax-shelter era’ of Canadian filmmaking.
Members of l’Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices de films du Québec occupy the offices of the Quebec censor board to demand greater provincial support for Quebec cinema.
The Ontario Film Office is established.
The Association of Motion Picture Producers and Laboratories of Canada is renamed the Canadian Film and Television Association.
The NFB creates Studio D, a unit under the direction of Kathleen Shannon, with a mandate to focus on production of films for, by, and about women.
CBC broadcasts "The National Dream", its most ambitious production to date; this eight-part miniseries is based on Pierre Berton’s two-volume bestseller, The National Dream and The Last Spike.
The Atlantic Filmmakers Co-op is founded in Halifax.
Peter Foldès’s Hunger, the first NFB animated film to use computer techniques, wins a Special Jury Prize for animation at Cannes.
1975
Secretary of State Hugh Faulkner negotiates a voluntary quota agreement with Famous Players and Odeon Theatres: the chains are to guarantee a minimum of four weeks per theatre per year to Canadian films and invest a minimum of $1.7 million in their production. .
The first Grierson Film Seminar, sponsored by the Ontario Film Association, is held.
The Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers’ Co-op and Winnipeg Film Group are founded.
Quebec passes legislation creating La Direction générale du cinéma et de l’audio-visuel to stimulate the film industry.
David Cronenberg’s first feature, Shivers, is released.
Robert Lantos and Stephen Roth establish RSL Productions in Montreal; their first production is Gilles Carle’s L’Ange et la femme.
CBC’s “King of Kensington” debuts, starring Al Waxman and Fiona Reid. (This conventional situation comedy, one of the most successful series on the English network, ran for five seasons.)
Bill C-58 is passed in Parliament; this legislation disallows tax deductions for advertisers who run commercials aimed at Canadian audiences on U.S. programs. Canadian networks are allowed to substitute their signal for U.S. channels on cable.
Cinema Canada magazine moves to Montreal and becomes a monthly edited and published by Connie and Jean-Pierre Tadros.
In Vancouver, Marv Newland founds International Rocketship Limited.
Michel Brault shares the best director prize at Cannes for Les Ordres, which also wins film of the year and best feature film at the Canadian Film Awards.
1976
The CCFM is granted a hearing before the Royal Commission on Corporate Concentration; however, no federal inquiry is called to investigate charges that Famous Players and Odeon work in collusion to block the exhibition of Canadian films. Famous Players responds by attacking the voluntary quota system and states: ‘Clearly the people of Canada do not appreciate the works of most current Canadian filmmakers.’
The CMPDA inaugurates the Golden Reel Award, for the producer of the Canadian feature film that achieves the highest box office gross in Canadian theatres. The first film to win is Lies My Father Told Me. The film also wins the best feature film at the Canadian Film Awards, as well as a Golden Globe Award for best foreign film, and author Ted Allan receives an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay.
The Moving Image and Sound Archives Division of the Public Archives of Canada in Ottawa is created.
The International Animated Film Festival is held in Ottawa; this is the first time the festival is held outside of Europe.
The Film Studies Association of Canada is founded.
The first Toronto Festival of Festivals is held.
Crawley’s The Man Who Skied down Everest wins an Academy Award for best feature documentary and Mary Pickford receives an Honorary Academy Award.
1977
The British-owned Odeon Theatres is bought by Canadian interests headed by Michael Zahorchak, but nothing changes.
The federal government gives up on voluntary quotas, which were not working.
Garth Drabinsky produces his second feature, Daryl Duke’s The Silent Partner; due to its unprecedented critical and box office success, this film marks the beginning of the ‘tax-shelter’ boom years.
The first World Film Festival is held in Montreal.
The Saskatchewan Film Pool is formed in Regina.
“SCTV” goes on air locally in Toronto on Global TV then moves to Edmonton for the 1979 season. (“SCTV,” one of the funniest parodies of television ever made, was picked-up by NBC in 1981 for two seasons in a 90-minute version, a first for an independently Canadian-produced series. The last season was 1983–4.)
Monique Mercure shares the best actress prize at Cannes for her performance in J.A. Martin photographe. The film wins best feature film at the Canadian Film Awards.
1978
The Ontario Board of Censors bans Pretty Baby, Louis Malle’s controversial film about prostitution in turn-of-the-century New Orleans. (The popular backlash to this ban marked the beginning of the end for Canada’s longest-running board of censors.)
Garth Drabinsky joins forces with Nat Taylor to form Pan Canadian Film Distributors.
Michael MacMillan, Seaton McLean and Janice Platt form Atlantis Films.
In a major shake up at the CFDC, former NFB-producer Michael Spencer, who had been head of the funding agency since its inception, resigns and is replaced by Michael McCabe, a politically connected financial administrator with no background in film production. (During McCabe’s tenure, ‘tax-shelter’ financed films would substantially increase as producers found him more compliant than Spencer to their demands.)
The Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers is founded; the Toronto Filmmakers’ Co-op ceases operations.
Ivan Reitman shoots the low-budget teen comedy Meatballs with “Saturday Night Live” star Bill Murray in Haliburton, Ontario.
The NFB wins two Academy Awards: The Sand Castle (animated short) and I’ll Find a Way (live-action short). These are the first Academy Awards won by the NFB in 25 years.
The Silent Partner wins best feature film at the Canadian Film Awards.
1979
Meatballs is released and becomes a huge box office hit in the United States. Its success demonstrates that investment in Canadian films is viable and lucrative. (‘Tax-shelter’ production peaks, and more feature films were made in Canada than at any other time; many were never released.)
Nat Taylor and Garth Drabinsky open Cineplex, an 18-theatre complex in Toronto’s Eaton Centre. The theatres are small and play 16-mm specialty films, European art films and Hollywood second runs.
Denis Héroux and John Kemeny establish International Cinema Corp. (ICC) in Montreal. Their first film is Atlantic City.
The Academy of Canadian Cinema is incorporated and takes over the Canadian Film Awards, which are now called the Genie Awards. (The name comes from the name given by the Academy to the statuette designed by Sorel Etrog.) No awards are presented this year.
The New Brunswick Filmmakers’ Co-op is founded in Fredericton.
The Canadian Filmmakers Distribution West begins operations in Vancouver.
The Banff Television Foundation is formed and holds the first Banff Television Festival.
The CRTC orders an extra half-hour of Canadian drama a week from CTV. (CTV would fight the CRTC ruling all the way to the Supreme Court but lost in 1982.)
The first issue of the Quebec film magazine 24 Images is published.
Mary Pickford dies at 87.
Special Delivery wins an Academy Award for best animated short.
1980
The Ontario Board of Censors attempts to ban Volker Schlöndorff’s The Tin Drum but backs down in the face of a huge public outcry and agrees to let the film be shown with only minor cuts.
Montreal producer Rock Demers establishes Les Productions La Fête to make Tales for All, a series feature films for children.
Cineworks opens in Vancouver and the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers (LIFT) opens in Toronto.
At the first Genies, The Changeling wins Best Picture and Meatballs wins the Golden Reel Award.
Every Child wins an Oscar for best animated short; this the fourth Academy Award won by the NFB in three years.
1981
Following the cult success of Shivers, Rabid and The Brood, David Cronenberg breaks into the mainstream with Scanners (above), which includes the now legendary on-screen head explosion.
Bonnie Sherr Klein’s controversial Not a Love Story: A Film about Pornography becomes one of the most popular feature-length documentaries ever produced by the NFB.
Bob Clark’s Porky’s, produced by Harold Greenberg for Astral, is released in the United States and becomes the most successful Canadian feature at the box office, worldwide.
The first Atlantic Film Festival is held in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
The Alberta Motion Picture Development Corporation is created.
Les Bons Débarras wins best picture and The Changeling the Golden Reel Award at the Genies.
1982
In one of the most important and effective programming decisions in Canadian television history, the CBC moves the national news from 11:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M. and introduces “The Journal,” a high-profile public affairs program with former radio host Barbara Frum. The change revitalizes Canadian television news and the CBC gains five hours prime-time Canadian programming per week.
The CRTC licenses six pay-TV companies: two national – First Choice Canadian and C Channel – and four regional.
The first Rendezvous du cinéma québécois is held. The Vancouver International Film Festival begins.
The Canadian Independent Film Caucus is created to promote the production of point-of-view documentaries.
The CCA for Canadian features is reduced to 50 per cent, effectively bringing an end to the ‘tax-shelter era’ of Canadian filmmaking.
Jean Pierre Lefebvre’s Les Fleurs sauvages shares the International Film Critics Prize at Cannes.
Ticket to Heaven wins best picture and Heavy Metal, wins the Golden Reel Award at the Genies.
Atlantic City is the first Canadian dramatic feature to be nominated for an Academy Award along with its French director, Louis Malle, and American stars, Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon.
Crac!, produced by SRC, wins the Academy Award for best animated short.
1983
Garth Drabinsky receives a hearing before the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission but hours before the hearing begins six major American distributors issue a joint statement saying they will change their practices and ensure competition in the distribution and exhibition of films in Canada.
C Channel goes on air in February and six months later goes off air in a major embarrassment as inexperienced management and poor audience figures kill the first lively arts channel.
First Choice Canadian causes an immediate uproar by signing a deal with the Playboy Channel. Later in the year, FCC is bought by Harold Greenberg’s Astral Bellevue Pathé with the backing of Bronfman money. (Eventually FCC became TMN and Astral Communications became one of the largest fully integrated distribution and broadcasting companies in Canada.)
“Empire Inc.” is broadcast on CBC and SRC. This big-budget CBC/SRC/NFB co-production starring Kenneth Welsh sets new standards for high-quality Canadian television drama.
Quebec’s new Cinema Act creates La Société Générale du Cinéma to provide funding for Quebec films.
The Supreme Court of Ontario rules that the Ontario Board of Censors is operating in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The United States Department of Justice labels Terre Nash’s If You Love This Planet a propaganda film and places restrictions on its distribution.
The Grey Fox wins best picture and Porky’s the Golden Reel Award at the Genies.
The NFB wins its seventh Academy Award for If You Love This Planet. Just Another Missing Kid, the CBC’s the fifth estate documentary special on the murder of a Canadian youth in the United States directed by John Zaritsky, wins the Academy Award for best feature documentary. Folksinger Buffy Saint Marie wins an Oscar for co-writing the theme song for An Officer and a Gentleman.
1984
Cineplex buys Odeon and once again the competition for first-run Hollywood movies is effectively reduced to the two major chains. Drabinsky launches a major buying spree in the United States, setting up Cineplex to become the second largest theatrical chain in North America.
Francis Fox, the Liberal federal minister of communications, issues the National Film and Video Policy. The CFDC is transformed into Telefilm Canada and a $35-million broadcast fund is initiated.
The Toronto Festival of Festivals programs the largest retrospective of Canadian films ever held in Canada, and Claude Jutra’s Mon oncle Antoine is proclaimed the best Canadian film of all time. (This event launches Perspective Canada, the premier showcase for new Canadian cinema at the Toronto festival.)
The Dog Who Stopped the War / La Guerre des tuques, the first film in Rock Demers’s Tales for All series is released.
Brian Mulroney’s newly elected Conservative government announces a $75 million cut to the CBC/SRC. There are major layoffs in staff and some regional stations are closed. CBC/SRC president Pierre Juneau announces that Canadian programming will move to 75 per cent in prime time.
The CRTC issues more pay-TV licenses, including Citytv’s MuchMusic and The Sports Network (TSN).
Ghostbusters is the box office champ of 1984 and the highest-grossing comedy to date. (Directed and produced by Ivan Reitman, from Toronto, co-written by Dan Aykroyd, from Ottawa, and starring Aykoyd and Rick Moranis also from Toronto, Ghostbusters is the most successful ‘Canadian’ movie produced with American money.)
Ex-art director and special effects expert James Cameron makes his name with the cyborg blockbuster The Terminator.
Next of Kin, Atom Egoyan’s first dramatic feature, is released.
The Terry Fox Story wins the best picture and Strange Brew the Golden Reel Award at the Genies.
Atlantis Films wins an Academy Award for Boys and Girls, one of six half-hour dramas based on short stories by Canadian authors broadcast on the CBC. Flamenco at 5:15 wins the Academy Award for best documentary short.
1985
Robert Lantos and Stephen Roth of RSL Films join forces with John Kemeny and Denis Héroux of ICC to form Alliance Entertainment Corporation.
The CBC broadcasts Anne of Green Gables over two nights and draws a record audience of five million viewers. This television movie, produced and directed by Kevin Sullivan, and starring Megan Follows and Colleen Dewhurst, is the most popular ever shown on the network.
After lengthy court appeals, the Ontario Board of Censors is finally disbanded and replaced by the Ontario Film Review Board.
The Academy of Canadian Cinema becomes the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.
Reel West magazine begins publishing in Vancouver.
Paradise wins the Silver Bear for animation at the Berlin International Film Festival.
The Bay Boy wins best picture and The Dog Who Stopped the War wins the Golden Reel Award at the Genies.
Charade by John Minnis, a student at Sheridan College, wins the Academy Award for best animated short.
1986
Garth Drabinsky sells 49 per cent of Cineplex Odeon to MCA Inc., the parent company of Universal Studios, effectively putting Cineplex under American control.
Telefilm Canada announces a $165-million Feature Film Fund over five years to assist in the production and distribution of feature films.
The MPAA signs an agreement with the province of Quebec (Bill 109) by which only Quebec distributors will be allowed to distribute foreign films in the province. This effectively bars English-Canadian distributors from operating in Quebec.
The report of the Caplan-Sauvageau task force on broadcasting policy is released; it recommends a new Broadcasting Act, special status for Quebec broadcasting, a revitalized CBC, and guaranteed access to the system for women, minorities and aboriginal people.
The ACTRA Awards transfer to the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television and become known as the Gemini Awards/Prix Gémeaux.
The Ontario Film Development Corporation is established with Wayne Clarkson as director.
The National Screen Institute, based in Edmonton, is formed, and the Local Heroes Film Festival begins.
With the tragic suicide of Claude Jutra, Canada loses one of its finest film directors.
The Film Canada Yearbook, published by Pat Thompson, is launched.
Playback, a bi-weekly trade publication, begins publishing.
Le Déclin de l’empire américain wins the International Film Critics Award at Cannes.
My American Cousin wins the best picture and Nelvana’s The Care Bears Movie wins the Golden Reel Award at the Genies.
1987
The Canada-Manitoba Cultural Industries Development Office (CIDO) and B.C. Film are established.
Cinevillage, a major studio and office complex partly financed by Atlantis Films, opens in downtown Toronto.
Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got shares the Academy Award for best feature documentary; Le Déclin de l’empire américain is nominated for best foreign-language film; and Norman Jewison receives his third directing nomination for Moonstruck. Imax Systems Corporation is presented with the Scientific and Engineering Award.
Patricia Rozema’s I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing wins the Prix de la Jeunesse at Cannes.
Le Déclin de l’empire américain wins both the best picture and the Golden Reel Award at the Genies.
1988
Federal communications minister Flora MacDonald tables the Film Products Importation Bill. (This bill would have given Canadian distributors some measure of access to films not produced by the Hollywood majors by introducing a licensing system for all film distributors operating in Canada. Eventually it died on the order paper. It was the last serious attempt by the federal government to curtail the activities of major American distributors.)
La Société générale du cinéma du québéc becomes the film division of la Société génerale des industries culturelles du Québéc (SOGIC).
The Canadian Centre for Advance Film Studies, founded by Norman Jewison, opens in Toronto.
At the Genies, Un Zoo la nuit wins best picture (plus 12 other awards, the most in the history of the Genies), and The Gate the Golden Reel Award.
Frédéric Back wins his second Academy Award for the Radio-Canada animated short, L’Homme qui plantait des arbres.
1989
Newsworld, the first Canadian all-news channel, is launched in July by the CBC.
Patrick Watson, the former producer of “This Hour Has Seven Days,” is appointed chairman of the CBC board of directors.
After a lengthy court battle with his original partners, Izzy Asper takes control of the Global Television Network in Toronto and announces his plans to build a third national network.
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters initiates the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, a self-appointed body to oversee a code concerning ethics, sex-role portrayal, and violence – the first in North America.
Garth Drabinsky attempts to buy back Cineplex Odeon from his American partners, but loses in a much-publicized corporate struggle.
The Ontario Film Institute folds into the Toronto International Film Festival Group to become Cinematheque Ontario and The Film Reference Library.
The NFB receives an Honorary Academy Award in recognition of its 50th anniversary. Joan Pennefather is named film commissioner; she is the first woman to hold this position.
Cinema Canada ceases publication after 18 years.
Toronto-born animator Richard Williams wins the special effects Oscar and a special achievement award for his work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Jésus de Montréal wins the Jury Prize at Cannes.
Dead Ringers wins best picture and Tadpole and the Whale wins the Golden Reel Award at the Genies.
1990
In January, the CBC launches “Road to Avonlea.” With an audience of 2.5 million for its first episode, the show receives the highest ratings for an English-Canadian series debut.
Love and Hate: The Story of Colin and Joann Thatcher, directed for the CBC by Francis Mankiewicz, and starring Kenneth Welsh and Kate Nelligan, is the first Canadian drama to be shown on U.S. prime-time television.
The téléseries "Les Files de Caleb" sets an all-time record for the SRC with an average audience of 3.2 million
CBC/SRC president Gérard Veilleux implements major cuts to take effect over the next three years; more regional stations are closed, all regional programming except for local newscasts is cancelled, and more than 1,000 jobs are eliminated.
The Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation is formed.
Denys Arcand’s Jésus de Montréal sweeps 12 Genies plus the Golden Reel Award.
1991
Bill C-40, the new Broadcasting Act, is proclaimed after being passed in the Senate.
The First Nations Filmmakers Alliance is founded in Edmonton.
L’Institute nationale de l’image et du son, a film school based on Jewison’s Canadian Film Centre, is established in Montreal; Rock Demers is one of the founders.
Jésus de Montréal is nominated for best foreign-language film at the Academy Awards.
The Genies move from March to November. Black Robe wins best picture and Ding et Dong, le film wins the Golden Reel Award.
1992
CBC replaces “The National” and “The Journal” with “Prime Time News” at 9:00 P.M. in a radical move that lasted only two seasons.
Brian and Terence McKenna’s The Valour and the Horror, a co-production between the CBC, the NFB and Galafilm of Montreal, airs in January; an intense controversy with veteran’s groups led to an inquiry by the Senate subcommittee on Veterans Affairs.
The Boys of St. Vincent, an NFB/CBC co-production directed by John N. Smith, is broadcast but the controversial miniseries is banned in Ontario by the Ontario Court of Appeals on the grounds that the show would prejudice the trial which was still in process.
The drama series ‘Les Filles de Caleb” is sold to the France 3 network and is shown on French prime-time television.
The CBC staff move into the new state-of-the-art Broadcast Centre in downtown Toronto.
“North of 60” is the first Canadian prime-time series to be shot in Alberta.
Le Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris organizes the largest retrospective of Canadian films ever held.
The first issue of the new Take One appears, published and edited by former Cinema Canada reporter Wyndham Wise.
Naked Lunch wins best picture and Black Robe the Golden Reel Award at the Genies.
1993
Robert Lantos takes Alliance public and creates Alliance Communications Inc. Alliance has become the largest producer and distributor in both film and television in Canada and is a major player in the North American marketplace.
Agagu / Shadow of the Wolf is released; at a reported cost of $31 million, this Canada/France co-production is the most expensive Canadian film ever made to date.
The Feature Film Project is launched at the Canadian Film Centre; the first production is Holly Dale’s Blood and Donuts.
The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television introduces the Claude Jutra Award for first-time directors. The first winner is John Pozer for The Grocer’s Wife. Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould wins best picture and La Florida the Golden Reel Award at the Genies.
1994
The federal government approves the takeover of the Canadian assets of Paramount Communications Inc. (formerly Gulf+Western) by Viacom Inc. of New York; these assets include the Famous Players theatre chain and Blockbuster Video. In turn, Viacom promises to exhibit more Canadian films and spend more money in the marketing of Canadian films in Famous Players theatres.
John Candy, the most successful of the “SCTV” graduates and one of the most beloved Canadian actors, dies at age 43.
“Due South” goes on air in prime time on the American CBS network – a first for a Canadian-produced series.
The CRTC licenses a new tier of specialty channels including Bravo!, The Discovery Channel and Showcase, which go on air 1 January 1995. However, use of a negative option billing by cable companies (whereby consumer must cancel the new channels or be charged automatically) creates a customer backlash and public outrage.
Nelvana Studios go public; Imax Corporation is purchased by American interests and goes public in the United States.
Exotica wins the International Film Critics Prize at Cannes; this is the first English-Canadian feature to win a major international award since The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974). Exotica wins best picture and Louis 19, le roi des ondes wins the Golden Reel Award at the Genies.
Winnipeg-born Anna Paquin wins the Oscar for best supporting actress in Jane Champion’s The Piano. At 11-years-old, she is the second youngest recipient in the history of the awards, and the first Canadian-born actress to win in the category.
1995
Through Seagram of Montreal, Edgar Bronfman Jr. buys MCA, owners of Universal Studios, from Matsushita Electric Industrial of Japan for a reported $8 billion Canadian.
The Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit replaces the old Capital Cost Allowance. It provides a refundable tax credit on certified Canadian productions.
The newly elected Ontario Tories under Mike Harris cut deeply into the Ontario Film Development Corporation, freezing production funding and slashing the amount of money available for the Ontario Film Investment Program, Ontario’s tax-rebate program.
La Société générale des enterprises culturelles (SODEC) replaces SOGIC and L’Institut québécois du cinéma, Quebec’s film advisory board.
”Front Page Challenge” is cancelled after 38 years on air.
”Due South” is cancelled by CBS after one season but continues on CTV and is sold worldwide.
SRC launches Le Réseau de l’Information, the first French-language, all-news network in North America
Le Confessionnal wins best picture and Johnny Mnemonic the Golden Reel Award at the Genies. (The ceremonies were held in Montreal, January 1996.)
The NFB receives its 10th Academy Award – for Bob’s Birthday.
1996
Harold Greenberg, chairman of the board of Astral Communications, dies at age 66.
The Cable Production Fund evolves into the Canadian Television and Cable Production Fund; the Fund consists of $100 million directly from the federal government through the Ministry of Heritage, $50 million from Telefilm Canada and $50 million from the cable industry.
The Ontario Development Corporation loses its funding for production and marketing but retains the Ontario Film Investment Program.
The Alberta Motion Picture Development Corporation ceases operations after 15 years; B. C. Film cuts its distribution program.
The NFB responds to federal government budget cuts by reducing its staff by 180, cutting services, and streamlining administration. The renowned laboratory is closed in July and two of the three remaining video libraries are shut down in August.
Telefilm Canada cuts 24 full-time positions and reduces its payroll by $1.1 million.
The Alliance for Canada’s Audio-Visual Heritage is founded; it is subsequently renamed the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada.
Crash wins a Special Jury Prize at Cannes for ‘audacity’ after a heated debate that split the jury over the merits of the intensely controversial film.
Lilies wins best picture and Crash wins the Golden Reel Award at the Genies.
1997
The National Screen Institute in Edmonton and Telefilm Canada announce the creation of Features First, a feature-film development program for emerging filmmakers outside of Ontario and Quebec.
Malofilm of Montreal becomes Behaviour Distribution; Norstar Entertainment of Toronto is bought by Alliance Communications; and Lions Gate Entertainment of Vancouver is formed with the purchase of Cinépix of Montreal and the Vancouver North Shore Studios.
With Ivan Fecan, the former programming chief at CBC-TV at the helm, Baton Broadcasting finally takes control of the CTV network. (The name Baton was formed from the names of the two founding families, the Basetts and the Eatons.)
The Toronto Film Critics Association is founded by Wyndham Wise.
A tragic plane crash in Northern Quebec claims the lives of director Jean-Claude Lauzon and Quebec television star Marie-Soleil Tougas.
The Sweet Hereafter wins the Jury Prize, the International Critics Prize, and the Ecumenical Award at the Cannes festival, making it the most honoured Canadian film ever to play the festival. The film also wins eight Genies, including best picture. Air Bud wins the Golden Reel Award.
1998
The merger of Alliance Communications and Atlantis Films creates Alliance Atlantis Communications with Michael MacMillan as chairman and CEO. Robert Lantos announces his intention to step aside from the day-to-day operations of the new company to concentrate on producing features.
The chain of U. S. and Canadian Cineplex Odeon theatres is bought by the Japanese communications giant Sony. However, the Canadian distribution division, Cineplex Odeon Films, is sold to Alliance; it remains as a stand-alone company, now known as Odeon Films.
CanWest Global buys the television stations owned by WIC Broadcasting of Vancouver. The purchase completes Global’s 10-year goal to create Canada’s third national network.
John Bassett, newspaper publisher, original owner of CFTO-TV in Toronto and co-founder of the CTV network, dies at the age of 82.
Joyce Wieland, considered the mother of Canadian experimental film, dies at age 66.
Veteran Quebec producer, Pierre Lamy, dies at age 72.
Sheila Copps, minister of heritage, announces a federal feature-film policy review.
The Sweet Hereafter is nominated for two Academy Awards: best director and adapted screenplay. James Cameron’s Titanic wins 11 Oscars, including best director – a first for a Canadian-born director.
The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television moves the Genie Awards ceremony forward to January 1999. No awards are presented in 1998.
The Quebec film industry launches Les Prix Jutra, an award showcase for features and documentaries produced in Quebec. The first ceremonies were held in February 1999.
Astral Communications announces a $10 million fund to aid the financing, development and production of French- and English-speaking documentaries.
The Canadian Television and Cable Production Fund is renamed The Canadian Television Fund.
1999
David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ wins a Silver Bear for artistic achievement at the Berlin International Film Festival, and Cronenberg is appointed head of the Cannes Film Festival jury, a first for a Canadian.
The Quebec and federal governments launch inquires into alleged fraudulent practices in the production sector.
Alberta introduces the Film Development Program, a new fund to partially offset the loss of business that occurred when the Alberta Motion Picture Development Corporation was closed down in 1996.
A new Canadian exhibition company, Galaxy Entertainment, is formed with ex-Cineplex executives and the financial backing of Onex Corporation, a Canadian holding company.
The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network gets CRTC approval to run a national network on basic cable systems across the country.
When the Day Breaks wins the Palme d'Or for animation at the Cannes Film Festival and the Grand Prize at Annecy. It also wins the Genie Award for animated short and an Academy Award nomination.
The Red Violin wins best picture at the inaugural presentation of Le Prix Jutra; at the Genies, The Red Violin wins best picture and Les Boys the Golden Reel Award.
Norman Jewison is given the Irving Thalberg Award at the Oscars for lifetime achievement.
2000
More than two years after heritage minister Sheila Copps announced the creation of a new feature-film fund, it is launched at the Vancouver International Film Festival. The new monies, to be administered by Telefilm Canada, increase feature-film funding to $100 million a year beginning in 2001. Copps declares that the object of the new money is to boost the audience for Canadian films, noting that Canadian films account for only two per cent of annual box-office revenue. She sets a target of five per cent in five years.
BCE Inc. announces its intention to buy the CTV network, which is approved by the CRTC in December. The telephone giant views the purchase as means of keeping in step with American Internet and media mega-mergers such as AOL’s purchase of Time Warner.
In March, Cinar founders Ronald Weinberg and Micheline Charest are forced to resign from the company amid reports that $122 million has been invested in an offshore bank without permission of the board of directors.
Corus Entertainment of Toronto, owners of YTV and part owners of Teletoon, purchase Nelvana Studios for $530 million.
Edgar Bronfman Jr sells Seagram’s interest in MCA and Universal Studios – along with the rest of his family’s liquor empire – to Vivendi of France; Lions Gate Entertainment of Vancouver moves its corporate headquarters to Los Angeles.
Sunshine wins the Genie for best picture and Les Boys II the Golden Reel Award.
Post Mortem wins best picture at Le Prix Jutra.
Les Productions Pascal Blais wins an Academy Award for The Old Man and the Sea, the first animated short shot in IMAX, and The Red Violin wins for musical score.
2001
The Canadian Feature Film Fund, managed by Telefilm, begins operations.
The OFDC dropped the ‘F’ for ‘film’ from its moniker to re-launch as the cross-platform Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Early September marks the launch of more than 40 new digital television networks available to the 2.2 million Canadians who have access to the technology.
AAC acquires Halifax-based Salter Street Films in mid-April for $84 million, effectively cornering the Canadian distribution market and gaining ownership of The Independent Film Channel licence.
Maelström wins the Genie and Prix Jutra for best picture and The Art of War the Golden Reel Award.
2002
Loews Cineplex, the American parent company, is acquired by Onex Corporation from Sony.
Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), the first dramatic feature to be shot entirely in Inuktituk with an all-Inuit cast, wins the Caméra D’Or at Cannes and the Genie for best picture; Wedding Night wins the Golden Reel Award; Un Crabe dans la tête wins best picture at Le Prix Jutra.
Arthur Hiller is given the Arthur Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscars and Howard Shore wins his first Academy Award for scoring Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
2003
Cineplex Odeon merges with Galaxy Entertainment to create Cineplex Galaxy PL.
”Canadian Idol” finale draws an average three million viewers on CTV to become the highest-rated English-language, Canadian-produced series.
Ottawa announces changes to the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, including an increase to the base credit for labor costs from 48 per cent to 60 per cent.
A Toronto company led by Michael Hirsh, formerly of Nelvana Studios, makes an offer to buy Cinar.
Izzy Asper, founder and chairman of CanWest Global, dies.
Les Invasions barbares wins awards at Cannes Film Festival for best screenplay (Denys Arcand) and best actress (Marie-Josée Croze).
Ararat wins the Genie for best picture and Les Boys III the Golden Reel Award. Québec-Montréal wins best picture at Le Prix Jutra.
2004
Onex Corporation divests itself of the American parent company, Loews Cineplex, but retains ownership of Cineplex Galaxy.
Quebec Superior Court approves the sale of Cinar to the group led by Michael Hirsh. The company is renamed Cookie Jar Entertainment.
The documentary The Corporation passes the $1-million mark at the box office, making it the most successful all-Canadian documentary.
Telefilm and SODEC release a study accusing Serge Losique and Montreal World Film Festival of poor attendance, lack of industry relevance and little transparency.
Montreal film distributor Cinema Libre closes its doors in November after 25 years in business.
Wayne Clarkson, previously executive director at the Canadian Film Centre and head of the Toronto Festival of Festivals, is named the new head of Telefilm.
Les Invasions barbares wins the Genie and Prix Jutra for best picture and Séraphin: Heart of Stone the Golden Reel Award.
Les Invasions barbares wins the foreign-language film Oscar, and Howard Shore wins two for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – musical score and song.
2005
The report on the first five years of the CFFF cites that while box-office share for domestic films in Quebec is a remarkable 21.2 per cent in 2004, English-Canadian films languishes at 1.6 per cent.
Cineplex Galaxy acquires Famous Players from Viacom, its parent company, effectively bringing an end to a Canadian business rivalry dating back 60 years. The new company, known simply as Cineplex Entertainment, controls 60 per cent of the movie screens in Canada.
The Federal Competition Bureau requires that Cineplex divest itself of 34 theatres from B.C. to Ontario; Halifax-based Empire Theatres buys 27 of them and is now Canada’s second-largest exhibitor. American-owned AMC, which merged with Loews in the U.S., is the third largest.
Take One magazine publishes its final issue in December, bringing an end to Canada’s only national film magazine.
Lions Gate Entertainment sells its Canadian distribution business to Maple Pictures, owned and operated by former Lions Gate executives.
Les Triplettes de Belleville wins the Genie for best picture and Resident Evil: Apocalypse the Golden Reel Award.
Looking for Alexander wins best picture at Le Prix Jutra; Chris Landreth’s Ryan, produced by the NFB, wins the Oscar for animated short.
