Donald Brittain

The film was about Hal C. Banks, a controversial American labour union leader who came to Canada in 1949 to lead a sectarian fight between rival shipping unions. Banks left Canada in 1962 after being brought up on criminal charges.  (more)

The Martians speculate on the nature of Earth's apparent dominant life form, automobiles.  (more)

This 1964 documentary returns to the battlefields where over 100,000 Canadian soldiers lost their lives in the First and Second World Wars. The film also visits cemeteries where servicemen are buried. Filmed from Hong Kong to Sicily, this documentary is designed to ...  (more)

A Jewish Holocaust survivor travels through Germany recalling scenes from his memory.  (more)

A 1964 documentary portrait of Cohen in his pre-musician days as a poet and stand-up comedian.  (more)

This film is a revealing portrait of a tough cop with a big heart. Sergeant Bernie "Whistling" Smith walks the beat on Vancouver's Eastside, the hangout of petty criminals, down-and-outs and a variety of characters. His policing is unorthodox. To many drug users, ...  (more)

This feature-length Oscar®-nominated documentary focuses on Malcolm Lowry, author of one of the major novels of the 20th century, Under the Volcano. But while Lowry fought a winning battle with words, he lost his battle with alcohol. Shot on location in four ...  (more)

Bureaucracy shapes our lives and guides us from the cradle to the grave. This documentary lays bare the idiosyncrasies of bureaucracy, whether in Canada, Austria, Hungary, the Vatican or the Virgin Islands. It also attempts to make the functioning of the public ...  (more)

It was the time when fire got stolen by tigers so uncle tiger gets his sisters son to get back the fire but when he gets to the village he forgets what his uncle wanted and he asks all the villagers to help him but he likes the village so much and...instead of ...  (more)

A film biography of Dr. Norman Bethune, the Canadian doctor who served with the loyalists during the Spanish Civil War and with the North Chinese Army during the Sino-Japanese War. In Spain he pioneered the world's first mobile blood-transfusion service; in China ...  (more)

Everything seems normal at a hockey arena until the roof, straining under the weight of the ice and snow that has built up, finally gives way, collapsing on top of the fans and players below. Many are killed in the tragic accident, but a few survive, trapped under ...  (more)

This short documentary examines the complex range of issues affecting urban transport in developing countries. After examining cost and available technology, as well as the different needs of the industrialized middle class and the urban poor, the film proposes ...  (more)

The final instalment of this 3-part documentary series about Pierre Elliott Trudeau and René Lévesque spans the decade between 1976 and 1986. The film reveals the turbulent, behind-the-scenes drama during the Quebec referendum and the repatriation of the Canadian ...  (more)

Family offers a candid look at CBC Radio in action and the unique cast of characters who make up Canada's coast-to-coast radio family. The film brings home the enormous complexity of producing across six time zones, with the mandate to deliver quality programs, ...  (more)

This feature documentary is a profile of Canadian press tycoon Roy Thomson, whose single-minded attention to business brought him riches, power, and even a baronetcy in England. A native of Timmins, Ontario, Thomson had a tremendous career as publisher, television ...  (more)

The early history of Canadian film making before the establishment of the National Film Board of Canada.  (more)

This feature documentary is a fascinating and spirited portrait of the life and times of the legendary Quebec politician and four-time mayor of Montreal Camillien Houde. Using rare archival footage and interviews with ex-colleagues, aides and friends, the film ...  (more)

Part 2 of this 3-part documentary series about Pierre Elliott Trudeau and René Lévesque covers the years between 1967 and 1977, a colourful decade that saw Trudeau win three federal elections, the 1970 October Crisis and the sweeping rise to power of the Parti ...  (more)

In Part 1 of this 3-part documentary series, director Donald Brittain chronicles the early years of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and René Lévesque. From their university days in the 1950s to 1967 when Lévesque left the Liberal Party and Trudeau became the federal ...  (more)

Part documentary/part dramatization, this film details several of the highest-profile unsolved cases of disappearances, mysterious changes in personality and other strange occurrences related to the Bermuda Triangle.  (more)