Other library resource(s)
Canadian cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Canadian cinema began with the June 1896 screenings of the Lumière Cinematograph in Montreal. Early cinema was marked by an uneven balance between Canadian pioneers—for example, Nell Shipman, actress, director, producer, and writer of hits such as Back to God’s Country; or Léo-Ernest Ouimet, producer of hundreds of short films and founder of one of the world’s first motion picture theaters—and the dominance of production and distribution by foreign interests, above all American.
Internet resource(s)
- Indigenous cinema at the NFB
Their Collection includes documentaries, animations, experimental films, fiction and interactive works. They showcase films that take a stand on issues of global importance that matter to Canadians—stories about the environment, human rights, international conflict, the arts and more. - Made in Canada: the 80 greatest Canadian movies of all time from Goomba StumpTo celebrate Canada Day, the author compiled a list of the best Canadian movies of all time. What follows is a list of films spanning decades and covering a wide variety of genres, themes, and styles— and all made in Canada.
- National Canadian Film DayFor the sesquicentennial edition of National Canadian Film Day, REEL CANADA created this list of 150 Canadian Films to help their partners begin a journey of cinematic discovery. This is not a “best ever” list and is by no means definitive. But the films on this list do reflect the vast range of stories that Canadians tell.
- National Film Board of CanadaCanada’s public film producer and distributor, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) provides the country and world with a unique perspective.
Keeping up with the journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for a national or regional cinema? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's you can download and read the articles you want.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.
Introduction to Canadian film
Early film production consisted of a number of short documentaries about life on the plains of Manitoba made from 1897 by British-born James Freer. These were quickly followed by a series of films promoting Canada or Canadian products commissioned by the Bioscope Company of Canada. The success of the first Canadian feature film, Evangeline (William Cavanaugh and Edward P. Sullivan, 1913) led to the establishment of film companies in a number of cities and the production of a small number of comedy, adventure, and war films. Canada’s nascent film industry developed further during World War I, with a dedicated Canadian newsreel and, in 1917, the construction of a film studio in Trenton, Ontario. During this time producer, writer, and actress Nell Shipman had success with Back to God’s Country (David Hartford, 1919) and a number of Canadian actors, including Mary Pickford, Fay Wray, Walter Pidgeon, and Norma Shearer, embarked on successful careers in Hollywood. During the 1920s local production stalled in the face of fierce US competition, and in the 1930s only thirteen feature films were produced, with Canada in effect a ‘branch plant’ for the US studio system and a producer of, and exploitable market for, British quota quickies. In 1939 the government-funded National Film Board (NFB) was set up with a remit to cultivate a distinct national film culture. The NFB enjoyed limited success with feature film production but has been extremely successful in fostering a documentary and animation tradition with strong international links. During this period a distinct and political regional cinema also developed in the French-speaking province of Quebec. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Canada, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 15 Aug. 2022
Searching the online catalog
You can use the subject heading below to find resources in the online catalog. The call number range is also included. These can be found on Baker Stack Level 4.
- motion pictures canadacall number range PN 1993.5 .C2 on Baker Stacks Level 4.
Introductory reading(s)
Canadian film and video: a bibliography and guide to the literature = Film et vidéo canadiens: bibliographie analytique sur le cinéma et la vidéo by Call Number: Baker-Berry Z 5784 .M9 L47 1997 v. 1 - 2ISBN: 9780802029881This extensive bibliography and reference guide is an invaluable resource for researchers, practitioners, students, and anyone with an interest in Canadian film and video. With over 24,500 entries, of which 10,500 are annotated, it opens up the literature devoted to Canadian film and video, at last making it readily accessible to scholars and researchers. Drawing on both English and French sources, it identifies books, catalogues, government reports, theses, and periodical and newspaper articles from Canadian and non-Canadian publications from the first decade of the twentieth century to 1989. ...
Canadian national cinema: ideology, difference and representation by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .C2 G54 2002ISBN: 9780415142823Canadian National Cinema explores the idea of the nation across Canada's film history, from early films of colonisation and white settlement such as The Wheatfields of Canada and Back to God's Country, to recent films like Nô, LE Confessional Mon Oncle Antoine, Grey Fox, Highway 61, Kanehsatake, and I've Heard the Mermaids Singing.
Film in Canada by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .C2 L42 2011ISBN: 9780195432435Publication Date: 2nd ed.This new edition of Film in Canada offers a current and comprehensive look at Canadian cinema in its political and cultural contexts. ...
The Oxford handbook of Canadian cinema by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780190229108The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Cinema offers an overview of the current state of thinking around Canadian cinema. The volume was conceived to register the variety of voices expressing themselves within Canadian cinema with special attention paid to Indigenous, Quebecois, and diasporic identities. ...
Quebec national cinema by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1933.5 .C2 M27 2001ISBN: 9780773521162In the first comprehensive, theoretically informed work in English on Quebec cinema, Marshall views his subject as neither the assertion of some unproblematic national wholeness nor a random collection of disparate voices that drown out or invalidate the question of nation. Instead, he shows that while the allegory of nation marks Quebec film production it also leads to a tension between textual and contextual forces, between homogeneity and heterogeneity, and between major and minor modes of being and identity. Drawing on a broad framework of theory and particularly indebted to the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Quebec National Cinema makes a valuable contribution to debates in film studies on national cinemas and to the burgeoning interest in French studies in the culture and politics of la francophonie.
Take One's essential guide to Canadian film by Call Number: Baker-Berry Ref. PN 1993.5 .C2 T29 2001ISBN: 9780802083982Take One's Essential Guide to Canadian Film is the most exhaustive and up-to-date reference book on Canadian film and filmmakers, combining 700 reviews and biographical listings with a detailed chronology of major events in Canadian film and television history. ...
Selected book titles
The cinema of Canada by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .C2 C56 2006ISBN: 9781904764601Often overlooked and overshadowed by its North American cousin, Canadian cinema has nevertheless produced some mesmerising films and directors, including Atom Egoyan, Robert Lepage and Denys Arcand. The Cinema of Canada contains 24 essays, each on a different film and divides itself into three distinct categories: English-Canadian cinema; Québec cinema; Aboriginal cinema. In so doing, it provides a fascinating historical account of the development of film and documentary traditions across the diverse national and regional communities in Canada. ...
In the national interest: a chronicle of the National Film Board of Canada from 1949 to 1989 by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .C2 E93 1991ISBN: 9780802068330One of the cornerstones of Canadian culture, the National Film Board has throughout its history mirrored the social issues that preoccupy Canadians. Gary Evans traces the development of the postwar NFB, picking up the story where he left it at the end of his earlier work, John Grierson and the National Film Board: The Politics of Wartime Propaganda. Evans points out that although Ottawa has not meddled in the operation of the NFB, outside stimuli have regularly forced the Film Board to reassess its mandate, a process which often has brought about as much confusion as light. ...
Northern exposures: photographing and filming the Canadian north, 1920-45 by Call Number: Baker-Berry F 1090.5 .G455 2004ISBN: 9780774809276To many, the North is a familiar but inaccessible place. Yet images of the region are within easy reach, in magazine racks, on our coffee tables, and on television, computer, and movie screens. In Northern Exposures, Peter Geller uncovers the history behind these popular conceptions of the Canadian North.
North of everything: English-Canadian cinema since 1980 by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .C2 N67 2002ISBN: 9780888643902The essays in North of Everything examine the state of Canadian film during a period of critical change. Their focus ranges from the conventional cinema to the avant garde, NFB documentaries to DIY videotapes. This comprehensive volume presents essays on established and emerging filmmakers and includes discussions of Canadian film institutions, history, and policy.
The young, the restless, and the dead: interviews with Canadian filmmakers by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .C2 Y68 2008 v.1ISBN: 9781554580361The Young, the Restless, and the Dead captures the spirit of Canadian filmmakers through interviews with the most accomplished and dynamic of yesterday's, today's, and tomorrow's film greats. Funny, provocative, and enlightening, the filmmakers reflect on their careers and explore with the interviewers the issues that challenge them. This book features an interview with a late director (Jean-Claude Lauzon) whose work is recognized in the canon as outstanding; ...
Finding journal articles
Articles and other writings about Canadian film can be found in many publications. Our collection includes 2 journals which look at Canadian film exclusively. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page. Below are the titles we have in our Library's collection.
- Offscreen byCall Number: Electronic journalOffscreen is a wide-ranging film journal that covers film festivals, retrospectives, film forums, and both popular and more academic events. Part of their mandate is to cover the Montreal film scene, but within an international context.
Revue canadienne d'études cinématographiques = Canadian journal of film studies by
Call Number: Electronic journalThe Canadian Journal of Film Studies / Revue canadienne d'études cinématographiques is Canada's leading academic peer-reviewed film journal.- Take #1Call Number: Electronic journalAn English-language magazine devoted to Canadian film and television. Covers the full spectrum of feature films, television, animation, documentaries, shorts, and independent film and video throughout Canada.
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceUse this index to find articles about this national cinema.
Screen studies collection by Call Number: Electronic resourceA comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database and the detailed and complementary filmographies created by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the British Film Institute.
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Selected movie titles
Find more Canadian films in the library's collections.
3 needles by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #4880ISBN: 9781932134773A look at how the tragedy of HIV/AIDS affects people around the globe. A porn star passes blood tests by stealing his father's blood; a nun helps a dying village turn to Jesus; mysterious deaths in China are attributed to the blood drawer.
Before tomorrow = Le jour avant le lendemain by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #10028A strong Inuit woman demonstrates that human dignity is at the core of life from beginning to end, as she faces with her beloved grandson the ultimate challenge of survival.
The fox by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #9264The arrival of a man at a farm run by two woman sets off sexual tension between the three.
A history of violence by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #3232ISBN: 9780780654099Tom is a loving, well-respected family man from a small Indiana town. When two criminals show up at his diner, Tom is forced to take action and thwart the robbery attempt. Suddenly heralded as a local hero who took the courage to stand up to crime, people look up to Tom as a man of high moral regard. But all the media attention attracts the likes of the mob, who show up at Tom's doorstep. Is it a case of mistaken identity or does Tom have a history that no one knows about?
I've heard the mermaids singing by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #1716ISBN: 9780788849763Comedy about an organizationally impaired temporary assistant who gets her first pemanent job at the age of 31 working for a curator of an art gallery.
One week = Sept jours by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #8938When a young man is confronted with his mortality, he takes a cross-country road trip from Toronto to Vancouver Island on a vintage motorcycle. In search for himself, he finds out what makes this country, and his life, so beautiful.
The perfect son by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #1056ISBN: 9781884190971Two brothers try to sort out their differences in the wake of their father's death. Theo has spent his life in and out of drug rehab centers, while Ryan has enjoyed success as a conservative lawyer. Reunited at their father's funeral, Ryan surprises Theo by revealing that he is gay. As Theo is drawn into Ryan's private world, the two brothers develop a complex, loving bond neither ever thought possible.
Thirty two short films about Glenn GouldCall Number: DVD ML 417.G68 T48 2000ISBN: 9780767827607Thirty-two vignettes, spanning pianist Glenn Gould's life from age four until his death at fifty, give an impressionistic depiction of his life.- The Tracey fragments byCall Number: Jones Media DVD #7967A young girl that uses fantasy to help deal with life goes on a desperate attempt to find her 7-year-old brother, who wanders away while in her care.
Water by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #4360A Hindu widow in 1938 could throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre, marry her husband's younger brother or live in poverty and self-denial from then on. When eight-year-old Chuyia is widowed, she is sent to a home in the Holy City of Varanasi where Hindu widows live in penitence. Her feisty presence affects the other residents, forcing each to confront their faith and society's prejudices, especially a young woman who has fallen in love with a follower of Gandhi.
