When 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.
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“The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there”. And so begins McWilliams attempt to do the impossible – travel through time to see a world through the eyes of those who lived it. This return to memory takes us inside the NFB vaults to discover the largely unknown women pioneers who helped lay the groundwork for Canadian documentary film during the 1940s and 1950s. Long before NFB's world renowned feminist Studio D and Regards des Femmes, women were occupying production spaces inside the Plank in Ottawa and in Montreal. Although many of the women were known to be hired directly by NFB's founding commissioner John Grierson, less is known about their earlier cultural achievements and lesser again about their later contributions beyond film. In signature MacWilliams style, A Return to Memory explores our cinematic past to re-frame our present and our collective understanding of the Canadian documentary tradition. With wit and first hand anecdotes, MacWilliams takes us to a foreign country in our own backyard, populating it with a cast of lively eloquent artists who have been lurking in the shadows far too long.
