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Working Life (23)
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Before They Are SixGudrun Parker 1943 17 minThis short documentary offers an early example of the challenges faced by working mothers. As women entered the workforce in greater numbers during WWII, their young children were cared for by others. At day nurseries, trained staff supervised children’s meals, health and play. Toddlers are taught how to wash and dress themselves and to put their toys away tidily. The film is an intriguing portrait of the nascent mid-20th century world of work for women and their families. -
The Colour of BeautyElizabeth St. Philip 2010 16 minRenee Thompson is trying to make it as a top fashion model in New York. She's got the looks, the walk and the drive. But she’s a black model in a world where white women represent the standard of beauty. Agencies rarely hire black models. And when they do, they want them to look “like white girls dipped in chocolate.”
The Colour of Beauty is a shocking short documentary that examines racism in the fashion industry. Is a black model less attractive to designers, casting directors and consumers? What is the colour of beauty? -
Doctor, Lawyer, Indian ChiefCarol Geddes 1986 28 minA tribute to Indigenous women everywhere, this short documentary focuses on 5 women from across Canada. Of varied ages and backgrounds, they have achieved success in a variety of careers: as the Yukon legislature's first Indigenous woman minister (Margaret Joe), as a deck hand on a fishing boat (Corinne Hunt), as a teacher (Sophie MacLeod), as a lawyer (Roberta Jamieson), and as a band council chief (Sophie May Pierre - St. Mary’s Indian Band of the Ktunaxa Nation off the Ktunaxa Nation). Each of these women talks about how she got to where she is today while emphasizing the importance of Indigenous culture - its values, art, and spiritual beliefs - in helping her to develop a sense of self and seeing through rough times, including residential school experiences.
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Eye Witness No. 98Tim Wilson & Hector Lemieux 1957 10 minBeauty Makes Business: In Toronto, at Walter Thornton's, the largest school for models in Canada, hundreds of young women enrol annually to learn the secrets of charm and self-improvement. Meeting of Minds: The city of Ottawa becomes a jumbo "brain trust" as 1200 men and women from learned societies across Canada meet to discuss the state of knowledge on many subjects. McGill Winter Carnival: For three days in winter, students at McGill University lay aside their books for outdoor pursuits, which include everything from handsome snow sculpture to competitive sports events.
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Each Day That ComesGraham Parker 1966 27 minA glimpse into the nature of loneliness. Frances Hyland plays the part of a small-town girl who enjoys position and respect in her community as the owner of a successful dress shop, but who wonders if marriage might not have been a better choice. Disturbed by thoughts of what might have been, she resolves to live each day as it comes.
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Emergency! A Critical SituationTahani Rached 1999 52 minShot at the Pierre Boucher Hospital in Montreal, this film takes us into the emergency room to see how our healthcare system is holding up. What it reveals is a powerful indictment of management that sees only the bottom line while human lives are at stake.
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Fair PhyllisBeth Portman 2003 9 minFair Phyllis affirms to all women 'You're not alone!' in the craziness of busy, multi-tasking lives--what with the demands of career, the kids or just trying to get a moment alone with your man. This short animated film delights in celebrating the resiliency and resourcefulness of the female sex. Set in an 18th century pastoral countryside, Fair Phyllis the shepherdess struggles with her chaotic woolly world. Will she find balance or crack under the shear stress of it all?
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Four Million ThreadsJackie Hurwitz 2016 25 min"Imagine leaving your lifelong home for a one-room flat in a city with a husband you barely know. You work beside 5,000 others in a factory, sewing 180 zippers on 180 sweaters each day. You’re the first woman in your family ever to earn a paycheck, but it’s barely enough to survive." Welcome to Monira’s world, and that of countless other women in Bangladesh’s booming garment trade—a complex world full of difficult choices and competing values. It’s a brand new world made possible by Western consumers, each time we purchase clothes from a major retailer. And it’s the world you’re invited to explore in Four Million Threads.
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The Glass CeilingSophie Bissonnette 1992 27 minThis short documentary presents 5 women from a variety of backgrounds who use strategy, humour and determination to seek to attain equality in the workplace. Whether in the public service or on the shop floor, discrimination against women is taking on increasingly subtle forms, which makes it even more difficult to tackle and eliminate. Various obstacles combine to hold back the advancement of women in many sectors, particularly in middle management positions, where we are seeing the emergence of a new “female ghetto.”
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How They Saw Us: Service in the SkyAnn Pearson 1977 9 minMade in 1957, this film glamorizes a service job in which minor emergencies appear as serious and absorbing challenges. Marriage is assumed to be the natural end of the middle-class woman's working life.
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The Hasty Man Drinks His Tea with a ForkSylvie Groulx 2003 1 h 23 minA blend of drama and documentary, this film follows several people caught up in the turmoil of the modern world. The drama centres on a woman who has burned out and who holds up her own despair – and her attempts to rebuild her life – as a mirror to the rest of us. With a blend of gravity and humour, Sylvie Groulx's film shows the absurdity of a society dedicated to the cult of speed at all costs.
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The Hands That HealGordon Sparling 1958 21 minThis film presents a broad picture of nursing activities in various parts of the country, and shows the work of the many nurses from other parts of the world who have brought their skills to Canada and have made a place for themselves.
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How They Saw Us: Needles and PinsAnn Pearson & Roger Blais 1977 10 minIn this film about a factory seamstress, there is the substitution of glamor for genuine job satisfaction and advancement. The film was made in 1955.
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How They Saw Us: Women at WorkAnn Pearson 1977 12 minThis is an abridged version of a film made in 1958. The greater part of the film accepts as normal the waste of women's talents in repetitive or service jobs, while elevating this work to the status of a career.
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Illuminated Lives: A Brief History of Women's Work in the Middle AgesEllen Besen 1989 5 minThis animated short challenges enduring myths, spawned by fairy tales and romances, about women in medieval society. It explores the differences and similarities between that distant period and our own, and shows what medieval women’s lives were really like.
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In Her Chosen FieldBarbara Evans 1989 28 minThis striking documentary pays tribute to the importance of women farmers to the agricultural economy, and recognizes the invisible subsidy their labour provides to consumers. Farm women from various parts of Canada, ranging in age from their thirties to seventies, are shown running a variety of farm operations, including mixed farming in Saskatchewan, wheat farming in Manitoba and dairy farming in Ontario. The women also share their views on agriculture today and their attempt to deal with economic and social challenges.
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A Motorcycle Saved My Lifelori lozinski 2022 12 minIn A Motorcycle Saved My Life, the open road presents a point of departure for director lori lozinski to process deep-seated grief. Revisiting the formative experiences that drove her ambition, lozinski examines the influence of her parents in the present light of day
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No Time to StopHelene Klodawsky 1990 29 minKwai Fong Lai is from Hong Kong, Alberta Onyejekwe from Ghana, and Angela Williams from Jamaica. They are immigrants to Canada, visible minorities, and women, a combination designed to make their lives difficult. While Canadian society has yet to accustom itself to its immigrant reality, these strong and resilient women manage to adapt and survive. At home and at work, they speak candidly about the conditions that shape their lives.
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Plenty of NothingDagmar Gueissaz-Teufel 1982 55 minHalf a million wives work with their husbands in family-run businesses, but most have no legal title to any part of the operation. This documentary focuses on several farm wives who are seeking their fair share of the family farm. In frank and friendly discussions with their husbands and with financial advisers, the women learn about co-ownership. The importance of having a legal arrangement becomes clear when a former farm wife tells how she lost everything she thought she owned when she and her husband divorced. Filmed in Québec's fertile Richelieu Valley, Plenty of Nothing encourages women to recognize the economic value of their work and to seek the legal recognition of their status and of their right to an equitable financial share.
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Rose's HouseClay Borris 1977 57 minThis fiction film takes an unvarnished look at life in a working-class boarding house. Based on the filmmaker's memories of his own mother's boarding house in Cabbagetown, Toronto, the story revolves around Rose and how she runs her establishment. With a household as full and varied as hers, domesticity clashes with disputes about bootlegging, violence, and stealing. Even authority isn't exempt: she does battle with a social worker over her son's theft of a bicycle. Rose is the queen of her castle, and delivers her own brand of justice.
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SòlValérie Bah & Tatiana Zinga Botao 2020 8 minMany Black, racialized and immigrant women work with elderly patients as healthcare providers. Their jobs, already arduous and underpaid as it is, have become even more exhausting during the COVID-19 pandemic. While some public commentators have described them as overrepresented in this sector because of their culture, and hailed them as “guardian angels,” what do they themselves have to say? This cross-sectional portrait of some of these women takes the form of a meditative essay.
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Tokyo GirlsPenelope Buitenhuis 2000 57 minThis feature documentary is a candid journey into the world of 4 young Canadian women who work as well-paid hostesses in exclusive Japanese nightclubs. Lured by adventure and easy money, these modern-day geisha find themselves caught up in the mizu shobai—the complex "floating water world" of Tokyo clubs and bars. Drawn by fast money, some women become consumed by the lavish lifestyle and forget why they came; one hostess calls this "losing the plot." With a pulsating visual style, Tokyo Girls captures the raw energy of urban Japan and its fascination with the new.
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Une femme de têteMohammed Belhaj 2006 14 minThis film tells the moving story of one woman fighting for her rights and preserving her dignity. Made as part of the Work for All project in 2006, an NFB and HRSDC-Labour initiative to combat racism in the workplace. In French with English subtitles.
