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Women (18)

  • 5′2″ 80 000 LBS
    5′2″ 80 000 LBS
    Nathalie Trépanier 1999 51 min
    This feature documentary shines a light on a group of women who are passionate about their non-traditional job – trucking. Filmed in 1999, it follows the women all across Quebec as they do their job and address the big-ticket items in life: love, family, freedom, and solitude. Filled with humour and the contagious good spirits of the women involved.
  • Camera on Labour No. 4
    Camera on Labour No. 4
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    Alvin Goldman 1956 13 min
    New Health Service for Garment Workers: Jointly operated by management and union, the Fashion Industries' Health Center in Montréal plays watchdog to the health of International Ladies' Garment Workers Union members through its free diagnostic service. Steelworkers Go to Press: An employee of the Stelco Steel plant in Hamilton, Cecil Lewis doubles as editor of a monthly union newspaper that keeps local members informed of union aims and activities.
  • Day After Day
    Day After Day
    Clément Perron 1962 27 min
    A film produced in 1962 that looks at life in a small paper-mill town in Québec where most of the 6 500 inhabitants derive their livelihood from the one industry. Day after day, the same work, the same hours, the same machines, the same product, until the entire routine of living becomes but a reflection of the dominant routine of the mill. This is the film's theme as it probes to the very core of company-town life.
  • Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief
    Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief
    Carol Geddes 1986 28 min
    A tribute to Indigenous women everywhere, this short documentary focuses on 5 women from across Canada. Of varied ages and backgrounds, they have achieved success in a variety of careers: as the Yukon legislature's first Indigenous woman minister (Margaret Joe), as a deck hand on a fishing boat (Corinne Hunt), as a teacher (Sophie MacLeod), as a lawyer (Roberta Jamieson), and as a band council chief (Sophie May Pierre - St. Mary’s Indian Band of the Ktunaxa Nation off the Ktunaxa Nation).

    Each of these women talks about how she got to where she is today while emphasizing the importance of Indigenous culture - its values, art, and spiritual beliefs - in helping her to develop a sense of self and seeing through rough times, including residential school experiences.
  • Emergency! A Critical Situation
    Emergency! A Critical Situation
    Tahani Rached 1999 52 min
    Shot at the Pierre Boucher Hospital in Montreal, this film takes us into the emergency room to see how our healthcare system is holding up. What it reveals is a powerful indictment of management that sees only the bottom line while human lives are at stake.
  • Earth to Mouth
    Earth to Mouth
    Yung Chang 2002 41 min
    Filmed at the Wing Fong Farm in Ontario, this documentary follows the tilling, planting and harvesting of Asian vegetables destined for Chinese markets and restaurants. On 80 acres of land, Lau King-Fai, her son and a half-dozen migrant Mexican workers care for the plants. For Yeung Kwan, her son, the farm represents personal and financial independence. For his mother, it is an oasis of peace. For the Mexican workers, it provides jobs that help support their children back home.
  • The Glass Ceiling
    The Glass Ceiling
    Sophie Bissonnette 1992 27 min
    This short documentary presents 5 women from a variety of backgrounds who use strategy, humour and determination to seek to attain equality in the workplace. Whether in the public service or on the shop floor, discrimination against women is taking on increasingly subtle forms, which makes it even more difficult to tackle and eliminate. Various obstacles combine to hold back the advancement of women in many sectors, particularly in middle management positions, where we are seeing the emergence of a new “female ghetto.”
  • How They Saw Us: Women at Work
    How They Saw Us: Women at Work
    Ann Pearson 1977 12 min
    This is an abridged version of a film made in 1958. The greater part of the film accepts as normal the waste of women's talents in repetitive or service jobs, while elevating this work to the status of a career.
  • How They Saw Us: Service in the Sky
    How They Saw Us: Service in the Sky
    Ann Pearson 1977 9 min
    Made in 1957, this film glamorizes a service job in which minor emergencies appear as serious and absorbing challenges. Marriage is assumed to be the natural end of the middle-class woman's working life.
  • How They Saw Us: Women at War
    How They Saw Us: Women at War
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    Ann Pearson 1977 10 min
    This 1942 British film, Women at War, contrasts sharply with similar Canadian productions. It accepts women's direct participation in the war effort as a natural outgrowth of their peacetime occupations.
  • How They Saw Us: Needles and Pins
    How They Saw Us: Needles and Pins
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    Ann Pearson  &  Roger Blais 1977 10 min
    In this film about a factory seamstress, there is the substitution of glamor for genuine job satisfaction and advancement. The film was made in 1955.
  • The Housewife
    The Housewife
    Cathy Bennett 1975 6 min
    A study, in film animation, of a day in the life of a housewife, described without words, with a minimum of detail but with a perception all the more pertinent because of the simplicity of presentation. The film makes no judgments. It simply states the case, but serves as an apt starting point for any discussion of the role of women and the value of their work.
  • How They Saw Us: Wings on Her Shoulder
    How They Saw Us: Wings on Her Shoulder
    Ann Pearson 1977 11 min
    This is a 1943 recruitment film. Although it specifically promises women jobs in post-war aviation, its primary message is that women fulfill support positions "so that men might fly."
  • The Hasty Man Drinks His Tea with a Fork
    The Hasty Man Drinks His Tea with a Fork
    Sylvie Groulx 2003 1 h 23 min
    A blend of drama and documentary, this film follows several people caught up in the turmoil of the modern world. The drama centres on a woman who has burned out and who holds up her own despair – and her attempts to rebuild her life – as a mirror to the rest of us. With a blend of gravity and humour, Sylvie Groulx's film shows the absurdity of a society dedicated to the cult of speed at all costs.
  • Luckily I Need Little Sleep
    Luckily I Need Little Sleep
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    Kathleen Shannon 1974 7 min
    Kathy worked as a nurse in Greece and then came to Canada. She and her family live in northern Alberta, where they are developing a farm. Kathy works outside the home as a nurse, sews for the children, maintains the house, and helps with the farm work.
  • No Time to Stop
    No Time to Stop
    Helene Klodawsky 1990 29 min
    Kwai Fong Lai is from Hong Kong, Alberta Onyejekwe from Ghana, and Angela Williams from Jamaica. They are immigrants to Canada, visible minorities, and women, a combination designed to make their lives difficult. While Canadian society has yet to accustom itself to its immigrant reality, these strong and resilient women manage to adapt and survive. At home and at work, they speak candidly about the conditions that shape their lives.
  • Rock the Box
    Rock the Box
    Katherine Monk 2015 9 min
    Critic-turned-filmmaker Katherine Monk trains her lens on DJ Rhiannon Rozier in this short film about breaking the glass ceiling in a music industry dominated by men. The Vancouver-raised, university-educated Rozier was so intent on making a career in the Electronic Dance Music (EDM) scene that she did something she never thought she’d do: she posed for Playboy.
  • Une femme de tête
    Une femme de tête
    Mohammed Belhaj 2006 14 min
    This film tells the moving story of one woman fighting for her rights and preserving her dignity. Made as part of the Work for All project in 2006, an NFB and HRSDC-Labour initiative to combat racism in the workplace. In French with English subtitles.