---

It really did, in a lot of ways, kind of set the tone for what our current multicultural policy is here today. Which is encouraging people to respect their traditions and to still be a proud Canadian. I think this film very clearly celebrated the Ukrainian culture and you hardly would have known they were Canadian other than the fact that the narrator framed it at the begging and at the end, reminding us that we were in fact in Canada. I think it was probably a pretty accurate rendition of their culture.

Q) Many NFB films of the era were made to show that Canada was a tolerant society as opposed to the Axis powers. Do you feel that Ukrainian Winter Holidays is an attempt to show this?

I have a few responses to the notion of the idea that these films were done to present Canada as a tolerant society rather than an Axis society. First of all, John Grierson was brilliant at the fact that he was able to create a film board, during wartime, get a lot of money to make films, however he wanted to, and nobody was getting in his way. 

I think there’s sort of a couple different things playing out at different levels here and really, truly one is that he had this incredible passion to use documentary, this new forum, as a tool to represent everyday people. And to celebrate everyday people the way they were, and to show them to other, everyday people.  I think he was very successful in that regard and of course also, that does become very conveniently a way of representing Canada as a tolerant society and a society that is focused on welcoming its immigrant cultures, in juxtaposition to the other militaristic nations. So I think it accomplishes a couple things at once.  But, partly I feel that Grierson had this sort of vision that documentary was a tool for the everyday man,  and so even as he funded the Film Board to make these wartime, propaganda films, this was really his other interest, his other passion.

Q) On viewing Ukrainian Winter Holidays today, it seems very folkloristic, cold, distant and dated, yet people in the Ukrainian community at the time felt that it was an accurate representation of their culture. How do you explain this?

OK, first of all, cold? That film was made without sync sound.  So, look at the evolution of film from 1942 to today. Film has now become an almost entirely sensorial, immersive experience. Whereas back in those early days, there were very rudimentary tools available to make these films, so, think about what the effect is of making a documentary without being able to record sync sound.  I think that’s the first thing to consider.

I think also in the early days of documentary there was very much a focus on journalistic structure. Much as you would structure an essay where you establish your thesis and then you go out, and you make your main thesis points and then there’s a summary at the end.  I saw that structure very clearly in all these early documentaries. And that was the mode of communication of the day. So I think it was very appropriate for the times and also a reflection of the capacity of the technology.

---