Donald McWilliams

When Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it.

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An instructive compilation about pioneer Ottawa animator Evelyn Lambart, playfully contextualized by filmmaker Donald McWilliams.

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Not only did Norman McLaren create his own film imagery, he also made his own music by drawing, etching and photographing patterns directly onto the sound track area of the film, becoming a pioneer of electronic music long before the invention of the synthesizer. Norman McLaren: Animated Musician celebrates this exploration and presents much never-before-seen work by this master of cinema.

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A look at the Mau Mau Rebellion of the 1950s as experienced by filmmaker Donald McWilliams.

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The search for paradise is one way we express the human journey, a journey marked by turning points, watersheds. At these moments, consciousness dawns: our lives seem to begin for the first time. A curtain is drawn between the future and the past.

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A short three minute documentary by Donald McWilliams regarding the film How Wings Are Attached to the Backs of Angels (1996) directed by Craig Welch

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In The Passerby, poems, home movies, interviews, photographs, and footage filmed all over the world combine to form a kind of necromancy: impression, imprint, appearance of many lives that were not lived without a trace. What can be read out of pictures and movement, facial expressions and gestures? Donald McWilliams' compelling contrast montage, visual effects, and use of music provide a meditation on the mysteries of existence.

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Norman McLaren was a cinematic genius who made films without cameras, and music without instruments. He produced sixty films in a stunning range of styles and techniques, collecting over 200 international awards, and world recognition. In Creative Process, director Donald McWilliams demystifies the process of artistic creation. Drawing on McLaren's private film vaults, a gold mine of experimental footage and uncompleted films, McWilliams explores McLaren's methods, including his celebrated "pixillation" technique, and his daring forays into animated surrealism.

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Canadian poet Earle Birney indulges his love of trains in this performance of his sound poem To Swindon from London by Britrail. In fluent "trainish," he interprets the experience of excursions by rail. Imagination sparked by the rhythm of wheels and the clink of couplings, Birney hums, hisses and hoots his way through archival footage of vintage trains and the English countryside. A must for language, animation and train buffs.

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This short documentary follows a group of students from Hamilton, Ontario, on a rare three-week “tour” of China in 1972. These teenagers were the first North American students to visit China since 1949, when Mao Tse Tung’s Communists overthrew the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek.

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When Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it.

Open details →

A look at the Mau Mau Rebellion of the 1950s as experienced by filmmaker Donald McWilliams.

Open details →

When Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it.

Open details →

Not only did Norman McLaren create his own film imagery, he also made his own music by drawing, etching and photographing patterns directly onto the sound track area of the film, becoming a pioneer of electronic music long before the invention of the synthesizer. Norman McLaren: Animated Musician celebrates this exploration and presents much never-before-seen work by this master of cinema.

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This film illustrates the life of the film director, Shui-Bo Wang in The People's Republic of China. We learn of the life of the director in his own words and images from a child steeped in the values of Chinese communism exemplified by Chairman Mao, to a young man striving to live up to those ideals both as an artist and a soldier.

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