Interview with Gail Vanstone
author of D is for Daring

Q What was your first experience with Studio D's films? How did they affect you?

A The first Studio D film I ever saw was Great Grand Mother (Dir. Lorna Rassmussen, 1974). I was teaching a course entitled Images of Women in Contemporary Canadian Literature and included Margaret Laurence's novel The Stone Angel in my reading list. I thought film might complement fiction with a "real-life" view. I booked a screening room and had a look. As I previewed the film for class, I loved what I saw: old women talking about their experiences as pioneers to the Canadian West, cooking, giving birth, doing hard physical labour, dealing with winter and loneliness — setting out details that didn't appear in any of the history books I'd studied. Here were intelligent, perceptive, spirited, courageous and admirable women — gutsy pioneers who, in many instances, were pillars of their communities and their families. The sound track re-introduced me to Ann Mortifee, a singer songwriter from the Prairies, and opened up a whole new area of music. This one little movie taught me a lot. Of course, my students loved it, and I think better understood the fiction for viewing it. This film made me look for other Studio D works.

Q In the book you say you will present a "fresh case" for Studio D. Why has the story of Studio D as a component of the women's movement received little attention?

A This is a question that covers a lot of territory — a government funded cultural institution, a feminist movement for change and women making films for and about women. When Studio D was officially shut down in 1996 it still had films in production. Jennifer Kawaja's two films Under One Sky and Beyond Borders weren't released until 1999. In some ways, the dust has barely settled. Since then, Studio D has received little attention — a few good critical articles but not much else. Maybe this is because the study of film and the study of a women's movement aren't necessarily linked. Also, to examine the operation of a feminist unit within the NFB, one of Canada's main cultural institutions, has its own complications.

During its lifetime, Studio D got its fair share of media attention, in part because some of its documentaries (Not a Love Story dir. Bonnie Sherr Klein, 1981, If You Love This Planet dir. Terre Nash, 1982 and Forbidden Love dir. Aerlyn Weissman and Lynne Fernie, 1993) attracted a lot of public attention. Feminism as a national political movement had well-versed champions and detractors. Both groups knew about Studio D because it made films with subject material that interested them. Women making films also knew about Studio D since, from the outside, it looked as though it had near perfect conditions — state of the art equipment, an international distribution system, an official place. I suspect, though, that audiences paid attention to the subject matter primarily, rather than thinking about where the film originated — unless they saw the film in an educational setting where the fact that Studio D was a Canadian feminist film unit within the NFB was emphasized.

It was easy to gloss over the fact that Studio D existed as part of Canada's National Film Board, unless one paid attention to the credits. When Studio D closed, I wonder if women in Canada, in general, were aware that the state had provided them with a "voice," and then withdrew that voice. However, given the fact that scholars are just now beginning to look at the "second-wave" of feminism in Canada, a study of Studio D seems timely. And, as one historian has said famously (I'm paraphrasing) we need to remember our history so we don't repeat old mistakes.

Q You write eloquently that feminist documentaries have the ability to promote a model of identity politics and are able to simultaneously capture the nuances of women's various realities — why do you think this is true? Was Studio D a pioneer in this activity? Are contemporary feminist documentaries able to continue in this model?

A The question of identity politics has been a magnet for feminist contention. On one hand it is seen as a demand for the right to be different and for that difference to be recognized as legitimate — as in a celebration of cultural diversity or minority rights. Critics, however, see it as a form of essentialism that assumes that politics "fixes" identity to a single position, subsuming both the personal and the collective, thereby muffling notions of difference or hybridity or the possibility that identity develops along a continuum influenced by time and place. Studio D waded squarely into these debates (without paying much attention to feminist theoretical developments) with the express goal of capturing women's various realities. Not surprisingly, it was criticised for its essentialist stance in a number of its documentaries. Kathleen Shannon, Studio D's originator, made it clear — she had no time for theory which she regarded as élitist. Rightly or wrongly, she was in a position to determine the nature of many Studio D films. Here was a strong minded, intelligent woman, a committed feminist who fought tooth and nail for change, who (it might be argued) was undone by stubbornness from time to time — but that's the subject of another book.

Shannon's insistence that women become filmmakers — operating cameras, writing scripts, working as sound editors, taking central roles as film subjects, exploring subjects of interest to them — made Studio D a pioneer in this respect. The program New Initiatives in Film (NIF) established by Rina Fraticelli and carried on by Ginny Stikeman yielded a dynamic new generation of women filmmakers. In fact, behind many of the successful women filmmakers in Canada today — whether they make full-length entertainment films or feminist documentaries — exists a relationship of some kind with Studio D.

Q You talk about a fascination with women's lives, both the stories we tell about ourselves and stories that lead up to and promote a feminist consciousness. Which stories as told in Studio D films have affected you the most?

A Of course I was moved by the insights and details revealed by the various filmmakers and producers at Studio D. However, the story that archival documents, particularly letters and memos, told affected me greatly, simply because they reflected the details of day-to-day dramas women associated with Studio D were forced to struggle with. I'm thinking of one instance when Rina Fraticelli, newly appointed executive producer of Studio D, was asked by NAC to prepare a video clip to present at its annual meeting. On April 27, 1989, a beleaguered Fraticelli wrote to interim NFB film commissioner Joan Pennefather: "Yet another truly desperate plea. NAC is saluting Studio D at their annual meeting in May. They asked us to prepare a quick video clip for the event which we — at breakneck speed — are doing. We are absorbing the substantial cost of 15 packages of 15 Studio D videos which we are presenting to that organization as our birthday gift. Now we discover it will cost $800 to rent a video screen. As you know, a substantial chunk of our production funds is now in the process of being reassigned in order to subsidize a considerable shortfall in [national] distribution (jeopardizing the launch of close to a dozen new Studio D films). The alternative is not to launch our films. This latest cost on top of under budgeted trips to Israel, etc. has got me up against a wall." Fraticelli's plaintiff question, "Do you have any suggestions?" in a paragraph all by itself at the end of the memo is haunting.

Q What do you hope to present to readers as the most memorable or enlightening Studio D experience in your book?

A I think I want to side step the notion of "memorable or enlightening" because different readers will respond to my book in different ways. What I tried to do in writing was to flesh out a particular feminist struggle for change; to try to go behind the scenes to signal some of the trouble areas for feminists working in the embrace of an institutional setting that we all face when we find ourselves in similar locations. One of the issues I gesture towards is the business of how women relate to other women and how we deal with power (or lack of it). That, for me, is fascinating, thought provoking and, finally, instructive — it's also necessary to grasp if we're dedicated to change.