Donald Brittain Movies

Everything seems normal at a hockey arena until the roof, straining under the weight of the ice and snow that has built up, finally gives way,...

This feature documentary traces the political career of T.C. (Tommy) Douglas, former premier of Saskatchewan and leader of the New Democratic Party,...

Through rare film footage and interviews with some of the pioneers who made film history, this documentary traces the history of filmmaking in Canada...

A film biography of Dr. Norman Bethune, the Canadian doctor who served with the loyalists during the Spanish Civil War and with the North Chinese...

In 1934, Elzire Dionne delivered five identical girls. The Dionne Quintuplets follows Cecile, Emilie, Marie, Yvonne and Annette through twenty-one...

In Montréal, Jean-Pierre is fired on the set of a TV commercial where he's an apprentice technician. He's penniless, behind on his rent, with...

In Part 1 of this 3-part documentary series, director Donald Brittain chronicles the early years of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and René...

First Stop, China is a record of the choreographed performances and the unrehearsed moments of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens ballet company on the...

A Jewish Holocaust survivor travels through Germany recalling scenes from his memory. This documentary follows a Holocaust survivor in 1965 on an...

In this feature documentary, American community organizer and writer Saul Alinsky goes to war against the conditions that keep the poor in poverty....

In 1968, a convoy set off to transport a Calandria, the 70-ton core of a Canadian nuclear reactor, to Rajasthan in India. Even the largest...

A view from a helicopter of the ten Canadian provinces in 1966. The result is a big, beautiful and engrossing bird's-eye portrait of the country....

The early history of Canadian film making before the establishment of the National Film Board of Canada.

This film is a short documentary portrait of economist, technologist and lecturer Fritz Schumacher. Up to age 45, Schumacher was dedicated to...

A biography of Enrico Fermi, the scientist who discovered the chain reaction in nuclear physics. Follows his career in Italy and later in America,...

Ancient pharaoh Akhenaten was almost lost to history. Canadian archaeologist Donald Redford, who uncovered the foundation of one of the...

This short documentary examines the complex range of issues affecting urban transport in developing countries. After examining cost and available...

This short documentary profiles 27-year-old Scoggie Watson, a Cape Breton stalwart who clings to the things he cherishes most: the waters of Lake...

In this documentary, the members of the University of British Columbia's Thunderbirds hockey team travel to China to demonstrate their skills to the...

A retrospective of documentary films by Donald Brittain offering a glimpse of the man and the restless energy that informed his work. Dedicated and...