An illustrated poster for Back to God’s Country (1919), the Canadian silent feature co-written by and starring Nell Shipman.
Photo credit: First National
In 1913, the Halifax-based Canadian Bioscope Company filmed Evangeline in Nova Scotia, adapting Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem about the Acadian expulsion. Its production involved American directors and performers as well as local personnel and locations. Six years later, Nell Shipman co-wrote and starred in Back to God’s Country, a commercial feature involving companies on both sides of the border.
Both films belong to the early history of privately organized Canadian production, although the financing and business arrangements of the silent era do not fit today’s Canadian-content rules. Over the following century, independence would take on several meanings, depending on who owned a film, who decided what went into it and where filmmakers could get equipment, financing and a screen.
The story includes Quebec’s commercial and artistic film industry, the National Film Board’s public production system, regional artist-run co-operatives and the development of Indigenous-controlled companies. Their histories overlap, but their working arrangements and goals have often been quite different.
The first commercial filmmakers, 1890s to 1920s
Public moving-picture exhibitions were held in Montreal in 1896, and Manitoba farmer James Freer was filming Prairie life by 1897. Early producers needed equipment, financial backing and somewhere to show the finished work. In Quebec, Léo-Ernest Ouimet developed film exhibition and distribution businesses when permanent cinemas were still a novelty.
Made by Canadian Bioscope in Nova Scotia, Evangeline is identified by TIFF’s Canadian Film Encyclopedia as the first feature-length dramatic film made in Canada. Its Canadian locations and the company's involvement are documented, but the American directors and performers make the film difficult to fit into a present-day national classification. Producers and performers were already crossing the border to work.
Back to God’s Country, released in September 1919, is another instructive case. Nell Shipman adapted the story, played its central character and performed demanding outdoor scenes; Ernest Shipman was its executive producer and David Hartford directed. Library and Archives Canada identifies Canadian Photoplays Ltd. and Curwood-Carver Productions in its production record. The film’s history crosses national borders, and the surviving version was restored from material held in different collections.
Canadian exhibition increasingly came under the influence of American distributors and theatre interests. Famous Players consolidated its position during the 1920s, acquiring theatres operated by the Allen chain. Early producers could find the money to make a Canadian film and still struggle to find room for it on screens at home.
The NFB and Quebec’s commercial cinema, 1930s to 1950s
The National Film Board was established in 1939, with John Grierson as its first commissioner. It gave Canada a substantial public production and distribution operation at a time when private feature production remained precarious. Documentary and animation work provided opportunities for directors, cinematographers, editors and other film workers to develop their skills.
NFB directors sometimes had considerable artistic freedom, and the agency backed work that commercial producers might have passed over. Its productions nevertheless belonged to a federal institution. That distinction helps explain why the Board appears throughout the history of Canadian independent filmmaking even though it was not an independent production company.
Quebec had a commercial feature-film tradition alongside this public system. Renaissance Films was established in the 1940s, and French-language popular films included Le gros Bill (1949), directed by René Delacroix and Jean-Yves Bigras, Les lumières de ma ville (1950) and La petite Aurore, l’enfant martyre (1952). Bigras had worked at the NFB before joining Renaissance Films. Skills acquired in public production could be put to work in privately organized features.
Theatres serving French-language audiences offered Quebec producers opportunities that were different from those facing English-language filmmakers. Films made for the Quebec commercial market had to be financed and exhibited on terms distinct from those of a federal documentary commission or an English-language feature seeking national distribution.
Direct cinema changes the relationship with the camera
By the late 1950s, filmmakers in Quebec were developing cinéma direct, using mobile equipment and working with people and events as they unfolded. Gilles Groulx and Michel Brault’s NFB short Les raquetteurs (1958), filmed around a snowshoeing gathering in Sherbrooke, became a well-known example. NFB accounts describe resistance to the unconventional footage before the short was completed.
Pierre Perrault and Brault subsequently worked with sound recordist Marcel Carrière on Pour la suite du monde, a documentary about life and a traditional beluga hunt on Île-aux-Coudres. Conversations among the people being filmed and their participation in events became central to the finished work. The filmmakers gave particular attention to the people’s own speech and understanding of their community.
Fiction filmmakers also used locations, smaller crews and contemporary settings in new ways. Don Owen’s Nobody Waved Good-bye (1964) follows a Toronto teenager struggling with family and social expectations, while Gilles Groulx’s Le chat dans le sac (1964) connects a young Quebec couple’s relationship to the political arguments of its time. Both were NFB productions that allowed their directors to experiment with feature-length storytelling.
These films helped train crews and demonstrate approaches to documentary and fiction that Canadian filmmakers could carry into projects outside the Board. But the practical questions of financing a feature, owning it and finding a distributor remained difficult for private producers.
Federal support and private features in the 1960s
In 1967, Ottawa established the Canadian Film Development Corporation, later renamed Telefilm Canada, to help finance a Canadian-owned and controlled feature-film industry. The NFB continued making its own productions. The new corporation offered private producers a separate route to federal investment, though financing remained only part of the task of getting a film into theatres.
Parliamentary histories describe repeated efforts to improve the circulation of domestic films, including voluntary exhibition arrangements. Public financial support could help complete a feature, but distributors and exhibitors still decided what would reach theatre screens. Independent filmmakers repeatedly confronted that separation between making a film and securing its release.
Tax incentives had a longer history than the federal feature-film development corporation. A parliamentary chronology records the introduction of a 60 per cent capital cost allowance in 1954 to encourage investment in feature films. In 1974, eligible investments gained a 100 per cent deduction, helping give rise to the tax-shelter era. The scheme was replaced by the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit in 1995. These changes affected how producers raised money, although access to financing did not settle questions of creative control or distribution.
Indigenous filmmaking and control of representation
Indigenous filmmakers had specific reasons to challenge the authority of outside crews to represent their communities. The NFB’s Challenge for Change program included an initiative known at the time as the Indian Film Crew, established in 1968 to train and employ Indigenous filmmakers. The historical program name belongs to that period; the filmmakers and communities involved must be identified according to their own Nations and histories.
Willie Dunn, a Mi’kmaq and Scottish musician and filmmaker, directed The Ballad of Crowfoot (1968) through the NFB. Combining his song with archival photographs, he addressed colonial history and the life of Siksika leader Crowfoot. Dunn’s authorship was central, although the finished film belonged to a federal production institution.
Alanis Obomsawin began working with the NFB in the late 1960s and developed a long documentary career about Indigenous rights, community life and political struggles. Her Incident at Restigouche (1984) examines Quebec police raids affecting Mi’kmaq fishing rights. She later made Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993) during the confrontation involving Kanien’kéhaka land defenders, Quebec police and the Canadian army. Her films show how an Indigenous director could exercise creative authority within the NFB, while Indigenous-owned companies developed other ways to control production and circulation.
The independent feature and Quebec co-operatives of the 1970s
Donald Shebib’s Goin’ Down the Road (1970) shows another kind of independent feature. Made through Evdon Films, it follows two men who leave the Maritimes for Toronto and discover that the city offers less opportunity than they expected. Shebib directed and produced it and co-wrote the screenplay with William Fruet. Its small-scale production and close attention to working lives made it an important reference point in English-language Canadian cinema.
In Quebec, filmmakers developed organizations intended to give members a greater say in what they produced. The Association coopérative de productions audio-visuelles (ACPAV) was formally established on February 6, 1971. The Cinémathèque québécoise’s account of its founding describes filmmakers creating a shared production structure suited to their projects and methods.
ACPAV made fiction and documentary work, including Mireille Dansereau’s La vie rêvée (1972), a feature about two young women and the lives expected of them. The co-operative gave filmmakers an organizational base for projects that could be difficult to develop within established commercial companies.
The Cinémathèque’s archives also document ACPAV’s dealings with the Canadian Film Development Corporation. Its members sought greater control over production decisions while pursuing financing from a federal institution. The source of investment and the way a production was governed were different questions.
Quebec’s commercial producers worked with very different kinds of films. Montréal’s Cinépix was involved in Denis Héroux’s Valérie and L’Initiation, while producers John Dunning and André Link later worked on David Cronenberg’s Shivers (1975). Such companies pursued genre and popular cinema, demonstrating the commercial ambitions that also existed within independent production.
Filmmakers continued to move between privately organized work and the NFB. Claude Jutra’s Mon oncle Antoine (1971), for example, was an NFB production. Its place in the artistic history of Quebec cinema does not change the institutional ownership of the film.
Regional co-operatives and a feminist production studio
The Winnipeg Film Group grew out of a 1974 filmmakers’ symposium that addressed the shortage of places for Canadians to make, distribute and exhibit films. Incorporated in December of that year, the Group pooled resources for members and later established its own distribution service in 1981 and cinematheque programming in 1982.
Other filmmakers were building organizations around regional needs. The Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative was established in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, Mi’kma’ki, in 1974. The Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers Cooperative followed in St. John’s in 1975 and the Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative began in Regina in 1977. Vancouver’s Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society was incorporated in 1980, while Toronto’s Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto, or LIFT, was incorporated in 1981. Each gave members ways to obtain equipment, technical training or exhibition opportunities closer to home.
Winnipeg filmmakers used the Group’s facilities for shorts, animation, experimental work and features. John Paizs and Guy Maddin became two of its best-known associates. Maddin’s Tales from the Gimli Hospital (1988) was one of the films to bring broader attention to the Winnipeg scene, while the Group continued supporting work beyond any single director’s projects.
The co-operatives were used by filmmakers pursuing a range of work, including documentaries, experimental films, shorts and eventually features. Sharing equipment reduced the cost of entry, while distribution collections and screenings helped people encounter films that might never receive ordinary theatrical bookings.
Filmmakers organized nationally as well. Representatives of production, distribution and exhibition groups formed the Independent Film Alliance in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, in 1980. Incorporated the following year and later known as the Independent Media Arts Alliance, it provided a collective voice for organizations whose concerns were often different from those of commercial production companies.
Kathleen Shannon founded Studio D at the National Film Board on June 1, 1974, creating a dedicated production studio for women filmmakers and feminist work. Studio D remained part of the federal agency, while Shannon and her colleagues developed films that had found limited opportunities elsewhere. The studio addressed some of the same barriers as artist-run co-operatives, though its ownership and financing arrangements were different.
By the early 1980s, filmmakers could pursue a feature through a private production company, make a documentary within the NFB or use co-operative facilities for experimental and short films. The available financial support, rights agreements and routes to exhibition differed considerably, even among filmmakers living in the same city.
Quebec and Toronto filmmaking in the 1980s and 1990s
A group of younger filmmakers in Toronto attracted attention with features and documentaries made through overlapping professional and personal networks. TIFF’s Canadian Film Encyclopedia uses the term Toronto New Wave for filmmakers including Atom Egoyan, Patricia Rozema, Bruce McDonald, John Greyson, Ron Mann and Peter Mettler, alongside producers such as Alexandra Raffé. Their films did not share one subject or style.
Egoyan’s Next of Kin (1984) and Rozema’s I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987) illustrate the variety of fiction emerging from this scene. Rozema’s film won the Prix de la Jeunesse at Cannes. The filmmakers often collaborated with one another and drew on Toronto’s production facilities and organizations such as LIFT.
Film festivals offered another path to audiences. Toronto’s Festival of Festivals began in 1976, and Montreal’s World Film Festival followed in 1977. Their screenings connected films with critics, distributors and audiences, although a festival appearance offered no guarantee of a sustained theatrical release.
Quebec’s independent and producer-led cinema developed alongside these Toronto networks. Denys Arcand’s Le déclin de l’empire américain (1986) was a theatrical and international success, followed by Jésus de Montréal (1989). Léa Pool’s La Femme de l’hôtel (1984) and Anne Trister (1986) pursued more personal material. Cannes’ historical account of Quebec cinema places these films within changing provincial production and audience conditions. Filmmakers worked with producers, broadcasters, private investors and public agencies whose roles differed from project to project.
The financing and distribution system continued changing. Ottawa created a Feature Film Fund in 1986 and introduced a feature-film distribution policy in 1988. Ontario established the Ontario Film Development Corporation in 1986. Quebec’s film companies were also supported through provincial institutions that would be reorganized again in the 1990s.
Indigenous-owned companies and the 1990s
Igloolik Isuma Productions was incorporated in January 1990 by Zacharias Kunuk, Paul Apak Angilirq, Pauloosie Qulitalik and Norman Cohn. The company describes its original ownership as 75 per cent Inuit. Its work in Igloolik included training, locally based crews and Inuit-language storytelling, developing a production operation with priorities set in the community.
That work reached an international audience with Kunuk’s Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001). Made in Inuktitut, the feature won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes. Isuma’s earlier development provided the production team and working arrangements needed for a film made on those terms.
The women’s video workshop that became Arnait Video Productions began in Igloolik in 1991. Marie-Hélène Cousineau established the collective with Inuit collaborators including Madeline Ivalu and Mary Kunuk; Susan Avingaq was also involved from its early years. Arnait developed films about women’s experiences and oral traditions through collaboration with the community. Members later worked with the Isuma production team on Before Tomorrow (2008), co-directed by Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu. TIFF credits Igloolik Isuma Productions and Kunuk Cohn Productions as its production companies, and the film won the festival’s Best Canadian First Feature award.
New funding and independent producers since 1995
In 1995, the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit replaced the capital cost allowance system. The program encouraged certified Canadian production and supported the development of domestic production companies. Producers could now assemble federal tax credits, other public investment and private financing within a different framework from the earlier tax-shelter era.
Quebec’s provincial film-financing institutions were also changing. The Société de développement des entreprises culturelles, or SODEC, began operating in 1995 after the reorganization of earlier provincial cultural-industry agencies. Its support for cultural businesses became one part of the province’s production infrastructure. Federal and provincial arrangements could both enter a Quebec film’s financing plan, alongside money raised by its producers.
The federal government announced a new feature-film policy, From Script to Screen, in 2000. The Canadian Feature Film Fund began operations in 2001, reflecting an attempt to address production and the work needed to find audiences. The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival also started in 2000, providing a dedicated setting for Indigenous filmmakers to present their work and connect with other creators and viewers.
Independent producer-led filmmaking in Quebec continued into the following decades. Luc Déry and Kim McCraw produced Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies (2010) and Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar (2011) through micro_scope. Both films received Academy Award nominations in the international feature category. Their production credits offer concrete examples of Quebec companies developing films whose distribution and audiences extended beyond the province.
Created in 2017–18 after decades of advocacy by Indigenous screen professionals, the Indigenous Screen Office became a national funding and advocacy organization serving First Nations, Inuit and Métis screen creators. Its mandate includes supporting Indigenous narrative sovereignty and developing opportunities for Indigenous-owned production.
Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language (2024) provides a recent Quebec example with a documented production and release structure. Made by Metafilms with Telefilm support, it had one distributor in Quebec, Maison 4:3, another in the rest of Canada, levelFILM, and a third in the United States, Oscilloscope Laboratories. International sales were handled separately. Its production company worked within a network of financing and territory-by-territory distribution arrangements.
Contemporary independent production has several routes to financing and exhibition. A producer may seek Telefilm investment and tax credits while negotiating the contracts that determine ownership, sales and distribution. A filmmaker using an artist-run centre may work toward a festival, community screening or gallery presentation instead of a wide theatrical release. The arrangements differ as much as the projects do.
Distribution remains a practical concern for independent filmmakers. Before Tomorrow was first presented to audiences in Igloolik, including people who had helped make it, before its wider Canadian release. Universal Language required different distributors for Quebec, the rest of Canada and the United States. These arrangements belong to the same history as the early production companies and film co-operatives: Canadian filmmakers have repeatedly built their own ways to finance work and connect it with an audience.
