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MQUP has just published a new book that looks at an innovative National Film Board of Canada documentary program called Challenge for Change/Société nouvelle, which ran from 1967 to 1980. Over the next few months the editors of the volume will be taking the book on the road for a series of book launches and film screenings in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Halifax (details here), and introduce the films and filmmakers to a new generation of viewers.
The Challenge for Change/Société nouvelle program pioneered, and, in many ways, was a precursor to the proliferation of new media we have witnessed in the last decade. Filmmakers would hand equipment over to people in various communities and ask them to record the events in their lives, to find the bare truth of social realities, at a time when the means to document events was limited to the few organizations that could afford expensive technical equipment. The achievements of the program were staggering and produced, a rare, candid view of numerous communities in over 200 films and videos.
At present the NFB is currently revolutionizing viewership in the same way Challenge for Change/Société nouvelle revolutionized access to documentary filmmaking. The NFB has been adding digital verions of its films to its acclaimed Screening Room, where anyone with an internet connection can watch hundreds of videos for free. In the coming months a playlist of Challenge for Change/Société nouvelle documentaries will become available in their own playlist. Look for more details here, or on Twitter and facebook. In the meantime, enjoy a sample of the NFB program's films in this book trailer for Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board of Canada, edited by Thomas Waugh, Michael Brendan Baker, and Ezra Winton. Enjoy.
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