Gendering the Nation: Canadian Women's Cinema

Susan Patrick is a librarian at Ryerson Polytechnical University.

This collection of essays, written mainly by Canadian academics, “was
conceived to foster the development of new paradigms of relationships
between cinema, the nation and gender.” The book grew from the
editors’ conviction that “Canadian women’s cinema represents a
richly diverse and evolving body of work that has contributed both to
Canadian cinema and to an international feminist film culture [and]...
deserved a focused and dense exploration that would draw upon the
critical discourses of Canadian cinema and women’s cinema.”

The essays cover a wide range of filmmakers and films, beginning with
the pioneering efforts of Nell Shipman in the 1919 Back to God’s
Country and culminating in the National Film Board’s Studio D. The
collection also includes discussions of French-language films from the
Office national de film, Native and Black filmmakers, Joyce Wieland and
the avant-guarde, and more mainstream narrative film directors such as
Patricia Rozema, Lea Pool, Deepa Mehta, Anne Wheeler, and Lynne
Stopkewich.

Gendering the Nation is an important addition to the literature (what
little exists) on Canadian women’s cinema.