A Return to Memory
To coincide with the exceptional circumstances of hosting the annual congress of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), we are offering a program highlighting the strengths of our collections and our mandate: animated film gems, world premiere commissioned works, newly restored features, documentaries devoted to heritage questions and the reuse of archives.
In the presence of the filmmaker, Donald McWilliams
When Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board of Canada suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it.
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, he 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. His other films include a trilogy of historical film essays: The Passerby (1995), awarded Best Cultural Documentary at the 1997 Hot Docs festival, 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 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. McWilliams taught experimental animation and documentary production for several years in Norway. 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.
Presented in collaboration with
