Madawaska Valley: John Ormond’s Lost Film at the National Film Board of Canada

Abstract

In 1967 Tanya Ballantyne Tree’s sensational The Things I Cannot Change marked the beginning of an influential new programme of participatory documentary filmmaking at the National Film Board of Canada. But while most accounts of Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle (CFC/SN) trace its pared-down vérité aesthetics and ethos of audience participation to that film, few have acknowledged the significance of other, more “poetic” documentary modes being explored under the auspices of the programme in its formative days. This article takes as its focus one such film, Madawaska Valley, produced in early 1967 by a Welsh documentary filmmaker by the name of John Ormond, who was at that time on leave from his job at the BBC. Unfortunately, the film is now lost, but a production file housed at the NFB provides us with tantalizing details about the film and its reception. It suggests that The Things I Cannot Change was not the only film upon which CFC/SN tested its aesthetic and political credentials. This article explores the origins of Madawaska Valley, and argues that it too was a key foundational text in the development of a nascent CFC/SN.