A Matter of Survival

This short film is a series of vignettes of life in Saint-Henri, a Montreal working-class district, on the first day of school. From dawn to midnight, we take in the neighbourhood’s pulse: a mother fussing over children, a father's enforced idleness, teenage boys clowning, young lovers dallying - the unposed quality of daily life.

A health problem causes a business leader to think about what will happen to his company after his death.

Pioneers struggle to establish a town in the harsh unsettled wilderness of northern Quebec during the depression.

The story of union branch no. 100. The dismissal of a worker in a factory shows his colleagues the instability of their situation. From the discussion that followed this event germinated the idea of ​​a union. A national union is consulted, which appoints a representative to explain the advantages and operation of a workers' union. Branch No. 100 is created and immediately becomes a trading agency; subsequently, it obtains better working conditions for the workers. The spirit that presides over all the meetings demonstrates the democratic strength of a union.

This short fictional film is a zany spoof of TV content with plenty of violence borrowed from the very source it seeks to parody. Our protagonist is a housewife who has lost her family to the television set. Suddenly, her home is invaded and her life is taken over by characters that seem to spring from the V screen. Initially, she attempts to get the intruders out of her house. But eventually, she begins to see that perhaps a life on TV wouldn’t be so bad after all. Will her distracted husband even notice her departure?

On the Spot was the first television series made specifically for TV by the National Film Board of Canada, and aired on CBC Television from 1953 to 1955. Each episode reported on a different aspect of life in Canada and was introduced with the line "The National Film Board’s up-to-the-minute report of what’s happening somewhere in Canada”. The series was originated by Bernard Devlin, with Robert Anderson as executive producer.