Some people say that the documentary is Canada’s national art form. The proof of this argument is evident in the evolution of documentary form itself in this country over time. From the early NFB days, documentary filmmakers mastered the art of the informational reel. Objective actuality footage brought stories of the war effort, portraits of labour, images of rural life, and exquisite glimpses of the Canadian landscape.

Over time, these documentaries honed their points of view and used the art form to harness voices from communities on the periphery of our national storytelling. From the Challenge for Change docs, to Studio D’s focus on female filmmaking, and the push to foster Indigenous voices, documentary has consistently been at the forefront of Canadian self-representation.

Contemporary filmmakers, meanwhile, are ushering in a new era of authentic storytelling by turning documentary form on its head. Tënk’s collection of new voices in documentary spotlights artists who use the aesthetics of documentary to invite audience to adopt a critical gaze of the world in which they live.

Filmmakers like Ryan Ermacora and Jessica Johnson (Labour/Leisure) deliver films about landscapes and the working class anew and challenge viewers to look closer at the power dynamics and inequalities embedded in the land. Artists like Sophy Romvari (Still Processing) offer deeply personal and self-reflexive works, baring herself while considering the power that these images hold and the responsibility entailed within making them. Likewise, Chase Joynt and Aisling Chin-Yee (No Ordinary Man) break ground by using the shapeshifting nature of hybrid cinema to draw attention to the problematic singular lens through which history is often written, while Andrea Bussmann and Nicolas Pereda’s hybrid work (Tales of Two Who Dreamt) juggles fiction and non-fiction to consider voices often outside the frame, and Antoine Bourges (Fail to Appear) reminds us that there’s no drama better than life itself by creating stories performed by the people who inspire them.

It’s an exciting moment for Canadian cinema. Grierson called documentary “the creative treatment of actuality” and no generation of Canadian filmmakers has afforded reality such creative sparks.

Pat Mullen
Éditeur, POV Magazine

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