The Clarenville Heritage Society invites you to attend a by-donation screening of

A RETURN TO MEMORY – directed by Don McWilliams, 116 min | 2024

The intrepid women who helped create Canadian cinema come to vibrant life in A Return to Memory, a fascinating documentary illuminating their vital but little-known role in establishing Canada’s National Film Board.

Juxtaposing a dazzling array of archival material with dynamic animation, the film evokes the heady wartime years, when, with men engaged elsewhere in the war effort, hundreds of women pursued careers at the newly formed public producer, playing a key part in transforming the NFB into a major international studio.

Film historians often point to films like Corral (1954) and Paul Tomkowicz (1953) as the beginning of Canada’s distinct documentary tradition, but Gudrun Bjerring Parker was doing it first, with films like Before They Are Six (1943) and Listen to the Prairies (1945). Bjerring Parker is among an extraordinary cohort of women featured in A Return to Memory, a masterwork of archival cinema that rediscovers the women and their work, and rewrites documentary history.

Watch an excerpt: https://vimeo.com/946646845

All are welcome. No preregistration is required. By donation.

For more information, write to info@clarenvilleheritage.ca