Canadian National Cinema

Canadian National Cinema explores the idea of the nation across Canada’s film history, from early films of colonisation and white settlement such as The Wheatfields of Canada and Back to God’s Country , to recent films like No , LE Confessional , Mon Oncle Antoine , Grey Fox , Highway 61 , Kanehsatake , and I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing . Through a series of case studies of both-well and neglected-Christopher Gittings uncovers the tensions in Canadian cinema between white Anglo and Native representations, and between Francophone and Anglo-Canadian narratives. Engaging with questions of inclusion and exclusion, race and representation, gender and sexuality, he shows how access to the production of cinematic images has determined who is represented and how. Following the changing images of the ‘founding nations’ from early ethnographic films like Saving the Sagas to documentary, experimental and feature films by contemporary First Nation filmmakers, Canadian National Cinema traces Canadian cinema’s continuing reinvention of the nation.