Women’s History on Film: Requiem for Studio D

Visual History Reviews ~ Women's History on Film: Requiem for Studio D Kathleen Shannon: On Film, Feminism «( Other Dreams. Produced by Signe Johansson and Ginny Stikeman; directed by Gerry Rogers. 1997· Colour; 50 minutes Under the Willow Tree: Pioneer Chinese Worn.en in Canada. Produced by Ginny Stikeman and Margaret Wong; directed by Dora Nipp. 1997· Colour; S2 minutes Seven Brides for Uncle Sam. Produced by Kent Martin; directed by Anita McGee; screenplay by Anita McGee. 1997· Colour; 52 minutes The Petticoat Expeditions. Produced·by Kent Martin; directed by Pepita Ferrari. 1997· Colour; 53 minutes. (All National Film Board) In 1974 Kathleen Shannon founded the National Film Board's Studio D, the first government-supported feminist film unit in the world. Under Shannon and her successors, Studio D fulfilled a unique mandate : to make films by, for, and about women. Studio D productions were frankly intended to be challenging, provocative, and empowering - films that explored the circumstances of women's past and present existence and fostered the movement towards gender equity. Studio D's successes were many; most notably, it produced over 125 films that won more than 100 national and international honours, including three Academy Awards. Studio D also helped to increase dramatically the number ofwomen filmmakers in Canada. In 1986 these many accom- . plishments were recognized publicly when Kathleen Shannon received the Order of Canada. Yet, sadly, in 1996 the NFB abruptly shut the unit down, citing the exigencies of fiscal restraint. The four documentaries reviewed here are the last films produced under Studio D's auspices. Taken together, they indicate the potential of film to inspire and empower us, and to expand our conception of history. Film is a genre of historical discourse which is increasingly gaining in popularity, both within and outside the profession. For that reason 94 The Canadian Historical Review alone these four documentaries deserve the attention of historians, feminist or not. As American scholar Mark Rosenstone notes, one of the greatest strengths ofhistorical films is their ability to bring the past to life - to recreate, through visual images, narrations, and dramatizations , the look and feel of an earlier time, the power of a visionary idea, or the strength ofa deeply held political conviction. The apparent immediacy offilm can draw viewers into the past through the.experience ofthe individuals on screen; by this means historical documentaries can introduce ideological positions (feminism, for example) in a manner that is easily accessible. Moreover, film can integrate analytical categories, such as race, class, and gender, that written texts often fragment. It is ironic, but in a way appropriate, that the last film produced in Studio D was a biography of Shannon herself, and that it was launched only a few months before Shannon's death on 9 January 1998. Kathleen Shannon: On Film, Feminism Bl Other Dreams presents an intimate portrait of Studio D's founder. In conversation and through archival film footage and old photos, Shannon shares some of her experiences as a solitary woman in the NFB's senior administration, as well as her recollections ofgrowing up and her uncertainties about aging, her early encounters with sexual harassment, her successful battle with alcoholism , her discovery offeminism, and the challenges of juggling, without support, the demands ofwork and family. She also expresses her hopes for Canadian women in the future. Throughout, Shannon asserts her conviction that each woman has a unique and valuable perspective, and that a commitment to bringing these perspectives together strengthens us all against those who would intimidate and, a~ she says, 'silence the brilliance of ordinary people.' This commitment is evident in all Studio D films, but especially in films about women who have been marginalized within Canadian society. It is apparent, for example, in the two films, Under the Willow Tree: Pioneer Chinese Women in Canada and Seven Brides for Uncle Sam. Both are collective biographies, but they feature two very different groups of women. The first focuses on Chinese Canadians who immigrated between 1860, when the first Chinese woman ,arrived in Canada, and 1923, the year the Canadian government closed the country's borders to Chinese immigrants with the notorious Chinese Exclusion Act. Seven Brides for Uncle Sam examines the...