Donald Brittain

Donald Brittain
Born	June 10, 1928(1928-06-10) Ottawa, Ontario
Died	July 21, 1989(1989-07-21) (aged 61) Montreal, Quebec
Known for	Filmmaker
Awards	Order of Canada

Donald Brittain, O.C. (June 10, 1928 – July 21, 1989) was a film director and producer with the National Film Board of Canada.

Fields of Sacrifice (1964) is considered Brittain's first major film as director.^[1] His other notable directorial credits include the 1965 documentaries Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen and Memorandum and the Genie Award-winning 1979 documentary Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed. He also directed the first-ever IMAX film, Tiger Child for Expo '70, and Earthwatch, a 70mm film for Expo 86.^[2]

He wrote the 1975 Oscar-nominated short documentary Whistling Smith. He co-directed the 1976 feature documentary Volcano: An Inquiry Into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry garnered 6 Canadian Film Awards and an Academy Award nomination.

Brittain also directed the three-part CBC-coproduced series The Champions, chronicling the lives and battles of Canadian political titans René Lévesque and Pierre Elliott Trudeau. His most ambitious project was The King Chronicle, a three-part 1987-88 television series about the remarkable career of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King.^[3]

He won the Gemini Award for best screenplay and direction for the 1985 drama Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks.

As NFB producer, Brittain's credits included Arthur Lipsett's A Trip Down Memory Lane.^[4]

Often a narrator of his own documentaries, Brittain also lent his voice to the animated mockumentary What on Earth!^[5]

Lifetime achievement awards and posthumous honours

In 1989, Brittain was the recipient of a Margaret Collier Award. In 1990, he was posthumously appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in recognition of "his masterful visual records of our social and cultural past.^[1]

The Donald Brittain Award for the best political or social documentary at the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's Gemini Awards are named in his honour.

Brittain is interred in Montreal's Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery.

Further reading

• Terry Kolomeychuk, ed (1991). Donald Brittain:Never the Ordinary Way. Winnipeg: National Film Board of Canada. ISBN 0-7722-0188-9. 

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Donald Brittain". Canadian Film Encyclopedia. The Film Companion; Take One's Essential Guide to Canadian Film. 2003. http://www.filmreferencelibrary.ca/index.asp?layid=46&csid1=9&navid=46. Retrieved 2009-11-11. 
2. ^ "Showscan". http://www.in70mm.com/library/process/showscan/index.htm. 
3. ^ "NFB Artisans - Donald Brittain". http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/portraits/donald_brittain/. 
4. ^ Kashmere, Brett (May 2004). "Arthur Lipsett". Senses of Cinema. ISSN 1443-4059. http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/04/lipsett.html. 
5. ^ "What on Earth!". Collection. National Film Board of Canada. http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=10502. Retrieved 12 March 2010. 

External links

• Donald Brittain at the Internet Movie Database
• Donald Brittain: Writer, filmmaker, storyteller at NFB.ca
• NFB biography
• Donald Brittain at The Canadian Encyclopedia
• Canadian Film Encyclopedia
• Museum of Broadcast Communications bio

Persondata
Name	Brittain, Donald
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1928-06-10
Place of birth	Ottawa, Ontario
Date of death	1989-07-21
Place of death	Montreal, Quebec