The document discusses the 'Challenge for Change' project initiated by the National Film Board of Canada in 1967, aimed at using documentary filmmaking as a tool for social change and poverty alleviation in underrepresented communities. Over 140 films were produced, allowing community members to participate in the filmmaking process and share their stories, thereby emphasizing community dialogue and empowerment. This approach marked a shift in documentary practices and underscored the potential for films to facilitate social transformation.

1. Political Docs & POV
Week 7
SHANNON W ALSH
SCHOOL OF CREATIVE MEDIA, CITY UNIVERSITY HONG KONG

2. Documentary
for social change
Can films change the world?
• Long history of documentary & social change

3. “Challenge for Change”
project at NFB
Challenge for Change (French: Societé Nouvelle) was a participatory film and video
project created by the National Film Board of Canada in 1967, the Canadian Centennial.
Active until 1980, Challenge for Change used film and video production to illuminate the
social concerns of various communities within Canada, with funding from eight different
departments of the Canadian government. The impetus for the program was the belief
that film and video were useful tools for initiating social change and eliminating poverty.
In total, the program would lead to the creation of over 140 films and videos across the
country, including 27 films by Colin Low about life on Fogo Island, Newfoundland,
produced in 1967. Known collectively as The Fogo Island Project, these Fogo Island
films had an enormous impact on the future direction of the program, and were created
thanks to the vision of Newfoundland academic Donald Snowden, who saw a need for a
community media project as early as 1965.
Started by John Kemeny, Colin Low, Fernand Dansereau and Robert Forget, and later
run by George C. Stoney, the Challenge for Change program was designed to give
voice to the “voiceless”. A key aspect of Challenge for Change was the transfer of
control over the filmmaking process from professional filmmakers to community
members, so that ordinary Canadians in underrepresented communities could tell their
own stories on screen. Community dialogue and government responses to the issues
were crucial to the program and took precedence over the “quality” of the films
produced.
As the program developed, responsibility for the film production was put increasingly
into the hands of community members, who both filmed events and had a say in the
editing of the films, through advance screenings open only those who were the subjects
of the films.
From Wiki:

4. The political?
“When you embark upon a
project you have to be prepared
to be changed by it forever. You
have to be prepared to search, to
go with the flow, and yet to
maintain a point of view that’s
not a fixed one, that is truly open
to a dialogue and a living
exchange with people. That’s
what I love about documentary.”
-Marielle Nitoslawska, “Bad Girl, Breaking
the Frame”

5. “Screening Truth to Power”
(2013)

6. Cinema Politica network

7. 5 Broken Cameras (2011)
Guy Davidi, Emad Burnat

8. Kanehsatake: 270 Years of
Resistance (1993)
Alanis Obomsawin

9. Paris is Burning (1990)
Jennie Livingston

10. Gas Land (2010)
Josh Fox

11. Shoah (1982)
Claude Lanzemann

12. The Interrupters(2011)
Steve James

13. The Punk Singer:
A film about Kathleen Hanna (2013)
Sini Anderson