Brenda Longfellow (born 1954) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

filmmaker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...

known for her biographies of female historic figures. Since 2007, Longfellow's focus in her films has been on

environmental Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...

issues.

Biography

Brenda Longfellow was born in

Copper Cliff, Ontario This is a list of neighbourhoods in the urban core of Greater Sudbury, Ontario. This list includes only those neighbourhoods that fall within the pre-2001 city limits of Sudbury — for communities within the former suburban municipalities, see ...

in 1954. Longfellow earned MA at

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...

and completed a PhD at

York University York University (), also known as YorkU or simply YU), is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, ...

Career

Longfellow is a Canadian filmmaker and Professor of Cinema & Media Studies in the York University Film Department. She is a film theorist and has published multiple articles related to

Canadian cinema The cinema of Canada dates back to the earliest known display of film in Saint-Laurent, Quebec, in 1896. The film industry in Canada has been dominated by the United States, which has utilized Canada as a shooting location and to bypass Britis ...

, documentary and

feminist film theory Feminist film theory is a theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory influenced by second-wave feminism and brought about around the 1970s in the United States. With the advancements in film throughout the years ...

Style, technique, and reception

Longfellow's stated the following on the Canadian Women Film Directors Database website about her biographies about women, ''"...using biography as a way to think through as deeply as possible the contradictions that women live with. I've often chosen subjects where there has been dissonance between the public image of the women and her private experience"''.

Significant works

*''Offshore'' (2018), an interactive web documentary received AMPD Research Award from York University. *''Dead Ducks'' (2011), received the Audience Award for Best Experimental Film at the Santa Cruz Film Festival. *''Carpe Diem'' (2010), a short opera about environmental disaster. *''Weather Report'' (2008), a TV documentary exploring climate change received a Bronze Remi Award at the Houston Film Festival. *''Tina in Mexico'' (2002), a feature documentary about Tina Mondott received Best Arts/Cultural Documentary at International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Havana, Cuba. *'' Shadow Maker: Gwendolyn MacEwen, Poet'' (1998) won a

Canadian Screen Award for Best Short Documentary The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's Award for Best Short Documentary is an annual Canadian film award, presented to a film judged to be the year's best short documentary film.Maria Topalovich, ''And the Genie Goes To...: Celebrating 50 ...

at the 19th

Genie Awards The Genie Awards were given out annually by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to recognize the best of Canadian cinema from 1980–2012. They succeeded the Canadian Film Awards (1949–1978), known as the "Etrog Awards" for sculpt ...

. *''Our Marilyn'' (1987), an experimental 16 mm film about

Marilyn Bell Marilyn Grace Bell Di Lascio (born October 19, 1937) is a Canadian retired Long-distance swimming, long distance swimmer. She was the first person to swim across Lake Ontario and later swam the English Channel and Strait of Juan de Fuca. Perso ...

received the Grand Prix at

Oberhausen Oberhausen (, ) is a city on the river Emscher in the Ruhr Area, Germany, located between Duisburg and Essen ( ). The city hosts the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and its Gasometer Oberhausen is an anchor point of the European Rout ...

and was purchased by the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

in 1990.

Bibliography

* MacKenzie, Scott; Waugh, Tom; Brenda Longfellow (2013) co-editors. ''The Perils of Pedagogy: The Works of John Greyson'' anthology. * Pevere, Geoff; Handling, Piers; Hays, Matthew; Wise, Wyndham; Longfellow, Brenda; Gravestock, Steve; Edwards, Justin D. (2009). ''Toronto on Film''. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. . * Armatage, Kay; Banning, Kass, Longfellow, Brenda; Marchessault, Janine (1992). ''Gendering the Nation: Canadian Women's Cinema'' (pp. 3–14) University of Toronto Press.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Longfellow, Brenda 1954 births Living people 20th-century Canadian women artists 21st-century Canadian women artists Canadian documentary film directors Canadian experimental filmmakers Canadian women film directors Feminist filmmakers Canadian women documentary filmmakers