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The first films on cultural communities in Canada were made in the 1940s. They seem quaint to us today, concentrating on ancestral customs, religious beliefs, crafts, dress and traditional dance and music. Their vision of immigration might to us seem naive and idealized, implying that the immigrants integrated easily and were happy with their new life in Canada. The films say nothing about what drove these people to move here, or what difficulties they faced, and consisting as they do of narration and music, they give no voice to the communities they represent. These comments are suitable for the viewer of today, but if we want to understand these films, we need to get into their mindset and avoid judging them too quickly. We need to bear in mind their context and the reasons  they were made.

This context is the Second World War. Between 1939 and 1945, the NFB, under John Grierson’s stringent rule, made propaganda films that were vehicles for the democratic values threatened by the Axis Powers. While remaining true to the NFB’s mandate of showing Canada to Canadians, the films on cultural communities preached tolerance and pluralism. They wanted to show that Canada was an open and tolerant country where many cultures could co-exist, where everyone could speak their own language and live according to their customs and traditions. They also underline the concept of citizenship, recalling that despite their differences, immigrants were Canadian citizens, had espoused the values of their new country and spoke one of the two official languages. Finally, the films endeavoured to promote national unity: Canada, despite its vast territories and the diversity of its population, was a united country where everyone aspired to the democratic ideal.

So they were political films seeking to communicate a message rather than to educate the viewer about immigrants’ difficulties. The use of the “voice of God” narration addressing the viewers in an authoritarian tone lent them an official air. This voice-from-on-high was that of the Canadian state, a responsible state, bearer of democratic values. However, these films were not in the pay of a party or a politician. Grierson actually remained independent in the face of the government, and the films shot at this time also had the task of guarding against the abuse of government power.

In 1942, James Beveridge, director, producer, editor and NFB pioneer, made Ukrainian Winter Holidays, a perfect example of a film about cultural communities shot by the NFB in time of war. His daughter, the filmmaker Nina Beveridge, speaks to us of the film and her father’s work.

Q) Part of the NFB’s mandate is to show Canada to Canadians. How do you feel Ukrainian Winter Holidays fulfills this mandate?

I think Ukrainian Winter Holidays was a perfect example of the early NFB’s objective of showing Canada to Canadians. By choosing a sort of immigrant group of Canada, and really, presenting, very literally their culture, mirroring it back to themselves and showing it to the rest of Canadians. And, as I was watching the film, it really did occur to me how this was really very much the first inroads of creating Canada’s current multicultural policy. Because right in the opening copy, what they say, is that these people are coming to Canada and devoting their lives to their new country and at the same time, honouring their traditions that they have brought with them from their far-off home.

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