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| Directed by Bonnie Sherr Klein |
| Canada, 1969 (documentary, 26 minutes, black and white, English / French) |
| Also known as "Opération boule de neige" |
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| Image: © National Film Board of Canada |
| Video (National Film Board of Canada) |
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Film Description: "An experiment in using videotape recording (VTR) and closed-circuit television to stimulate social action in a poor district of Montréal. A citizens' committee, formed in the downtown neighborhood of St-Jacques, was given a VTR unit, which they used to record people's problems and concerns. After viewing the edited tapes, people recognized their common problems and began to talk of joint solutions. In trying to change what needed changing they ran into resistance, but the effectiveness of this means of promoting joint action had been tested and proved." -- National Film Board of Canada (source) |
| Film Credits (partial): | |
| Produced by: | George C. Stoney |
| Film Editing: | Ulla Ryghe |
| Production Company: | National Film Board of Canada / Office national du film du Canada |
"The videotape recording (VTR) project in St-Jacques is an attempt to extend to its logical conclusion the conviction that people should participate in shaping their own lives, which means among other things directing and manipulating the tools of modern communication necessary to gaining and exercising that participation."
-- Dorothy Todd Hénaut, Bonnie Sherr Klein
(source)
"In a moment iconic of the new theory of participant action research and community empowerment, [Bonnie Sherr] Klein is shown handing over the filmmaking equipment to the 'people.' Nevertheless, in a metafilmic style, Klein continues to film the people filming."
-- Zoë Druick
(source)
"VTR St-Jacques effectively fulfils its obvious didactic aim, as it characterises concisely the advantages of video as social tool and catalyst, without exaggerating its role as surefire social panacea. After all 'it's only a machine', as someone says on the soundtrack, another way of getting people together, and of allowing them to express themselves. By way of conclusion the camera pans round a meeting of local people watching their programme about themselves; snatches of conversation drift into hearing about solutions to problems—the real point of the whole exercise."
-- Paul Madden
(source)
"VTR St-Jacques [...] documents a pioneering example of
community access video. Although the film-makers were responsible for
training the videographers / editors, they otherwise wrote themselves out of
the video work as professional documentarists. [...] With the coming of the
camcorder, the model of VTR St-Jacques has been followed
most assiduously at the BBC's Community Programmes Unit [...]."
-- Brian Winston
(source)
"L'essor du cinéma direct dans les années 1960 au Québec a donné naissance à de nombreuses pratiques cinématographiques qu'il est aujourd'hui difficile de classifier, tant les approches esthétiques se confondent entre la fiction, le documentaire et l'essai. Parmi celles-ci, les débuts de la vidéo légère sont associés au programme « Challenge for Change/Société Nouvelle » de l'Office national du film, à Montréal. Une des premières réalisations, Opération boule de neige, en 1969, réunit deux réalisatrices, Dorothy Todd Hénaut et Bonnie Sherr Klein. Cette réalisation, annonciatrice du mouvement de la vidéo d'intervention sociale et politique, montre les luttes de la population du quartier Saint-Jacques afin d'avoir accès à des soins de santé. La vidéo est très rapidement utilisée par les collectifs montréalais engagés et accompagne de nombreuses luttes politiques de la Révolution tranquille."
-- Julia Minne
(source)
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