Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board of Canada

Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board of Canada

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Role

Michael Brendan Baker co-edited the book Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board of Canada, wrote the introduction, "Forty Years Later… a Space for Challenge for Change/Société nouvelle", and contributed the chapter "The Curious Case of Wilf: Popular Music in Canadian Documentary." Sheridan users can access the ebook HERE

Document Type

Book

Description

Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board of Canada examines the ambitious initiative "Challenge for Change/Société nouvelle" that brought together the unlikely partners of government bureaucrats, documentary filmmakers, community activists, and "ordinary" citizens. Launched in 1967 by the National Film Board of Canada and several government agencies with the primary goal of addressing poverty in Canada through the production and dissemination of documentary cinema, the objective was to engender social change through media. This edited collection studies dozens of films produced by the program, their themes, aesthetics, and politics, and evaluates their legacy and the program's place in Canadian, Québécois, and world cinema.

Michael Brendan Baker contributed to the Introduction, "Forty Years Later… a Space for Challenge for Change/Société nouvelle" that summarizes the NFB's Challenge for Change initiative, the origins of the book project, and the legacy of Canadian activist documentary in the contemporary moment. He is the author of the essay, "The Curious Case of Wilf: Popular Music in Canadian Documentary," in which he provides an in-depth examination of the single film, Wilf (1968), using textual analysis, archival research, and interviews to illustrate the curious place this work occupies within the CFC program and the central role played by music in the project.

ISBN

9780773536623

Publication Date

2-2010

Terms of Use

Terms of Use for Works posted in SOURCE.

Keywords

National Film Board of Canada, Challenge for Change/Société nouvelle, film, cinema, social change, documentary

Disciplines

Film and Media Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences

School

School of Humanities and Creativity

Original Citation

Waugh, T., Baker, M.B., & Winton, E. (Eds.). (2010). Challenge for change: Activist documentary at the National Film Board of Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.

Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board of Canada

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