Donald McWilliams (8)
Donald McWilliams
Donald McWilliams is a documentary filmmaker whose work makes use of both live-action and animation techniques. He was inspired to become a filmmaker after meeting Norman McLaren in 1968. McWilliams would later work with McLaren, and this led him to make two films about the acclaimed NFB animator: Creative Process: Norman McLaren (1990) and Norman McLaren: Animated Musician (2014). Having also met McLaren’s long-time collaborator, Evelyn Lambart, McWilliams happily agreed to make Eleven Moving Moments with Evelyn Lambart in 2017. The film gave him the opportunity to bring Lambart out of McLaren’s shadow and recognize her contribution to his success, while highlighting her own beautifully crafted animation.
McWilliams’ other films include a trilogy of historical film essays: The Passerby (1995), awarded Best Cultural Documentary at the 1997 Hot Docs festival and selected as one of the 50 best film essays by the Vienna Film Festival in 2007; The Fifth Province (2003); and A Time There Was: Stories from the Last Days of Kenya Colony (2009). McWilliams also produced and edited Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square, which was nominated for the 1999 Oscar for Best Documentary Short.
McWilliams taught experimental animation and documentary production for several years in Norway. The Writers Guild of Canada has nominated his work twice for a best documentary script award. He has been a part of the NFB Animation Studio for close to four decades and was named Honorary President of the 2016 Ottawa International Animation Festival, a testament to his influence in animation circles.
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Aloud/BagatelleDonald McWilliams 1983 6 minCanadian poet Earle Birney indulges his love of trains in this performance of his sound poem To Swindon from London by Britrail. In fluent "trainish," he interprets the experience of excursions by rail. Imagination sparked by the rhythm of wheels and the clink of couplings, Birney hums, hisses and hoots his way through archival footage of vintage trains and the English countryside. A must for language, animation and train buffs. -
Crazy, QuiltDonald McWilliams 1997 27 minThis film is part of a series of television programs including interviews with the directors of short animated films as well as the films themselves. This video includes 2 animated shorts: Quilt (by Gayle Thomas), an animated tribute to patchwork quilting and Scant Sanity (by John Weldon), an exploration into the nature of the mind and reality in which a person seeking job counseling receives psychiatric treatment instead, thereupon becoming convinced of the reality of his own internal world.
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A Time There Was: Stories from the Last Days of Kenya ColonyDonald McWilliams 2009 1 h 27 minThis autobiographical documentary revisits the Mau Mau Rebellion of the 1950s. More than 50 years after the conflict, in which the director participated as a young British soldier stationed in Kenya for his national service, he confronts his past with audacity and unflinching self-inquiry.
Combining McWilliams' own photographic record of the times with original animation and archival imagery, A Time There Was crafts a thoughtful account of the Mau Mau Rebellion – one of the most contentious episodes in Britain’s imperial endgame. -
Norman McLaren: Animated MusicianDonald McWilliams 2014 26 minNot only did Norman McLaren create his own film imagery, he also made his own music by drawing, etching and photographing patterns directly onto the sound track area of the film, becoming a pioneer of electronic music long before the invention of the synthesizer. Norman McLaren: Animated Musician celebrates this exploration and presents much never-before-seen work by this master of cinema.
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Impressions of ChinaDonald McWilliams 1974 21 minThis short documentary follows a group of students from Hamilton, Ontario, on a rare three-week “tour” of China in 1972. These teenagers were the first North American students to visit China since 1949, when Mao Tse Tung’s Communists overthrew the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek.
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Creative Process: Norman McLarenDonald McWilliams 1990 1 h 56 minThis feature length documentary is a journey into Norman McLaren’s process of artistic creation. A cinematic genius who made films without cameras and music without instruments, McLaren produced 60 films in a stunning range of styles and techniques, collecting over 200 international awards and world recognition. Drawing on McLaren's private film vaults, a gold mine of experimental footage and uncompleted films, this film explores McLaren's methods, including his celebrated "pixillation" technique.
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Eleven Moving Moments with Evelyn LambartDonald McWilliams 2017 1 h 3 minThis feature-length documentary shines a much-deserved spotlight on Evelyn Lambart, who stood side-by-side with Norman McLaren for 21 years. Dubbed The First Lady of Canadian Animation, Lambart was an accomplished animator in her own right. This compilation, playfully contextualized by filmmaker Donald McWilliams, aims to prove just that.
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A Return to MemoryDonald McWilliams 2024 1 h 58 minWhen Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it.
