Year: 1975
Language: English
Format: 16mm Colour
Director: Martin Duckworth
Producer: Dorothy Hénaut, Len Chatwin
Cinematographer: Serge Giguère, Martin Duckworth
Editor: Michael Rubbo, Gérard Senécal, Martin Duckworth, Ginny Stikeman
Sound: Hugues Mignault, Benoît Fauteux
Music: Bob Robb
Narration: Michel Garneau
Production Company: National Film Board of Canada

Part I: Our Bread-and-Butter and Our Home, 31 min.
Part II: A Marriage of Necessity, 33 min.

This direct-cinema documentary depicts what happened to a company town after its principal employer, Canadian International Paper, closed down in 1972. Part I details the steps taken by ex-CIP managers and the townspeople to re-open the mill under a new name and a new co-operative ownership. Part II shows the difficulties and frustrations involved in trying to operate the mill with outdated equipment and, more tellingly, the problems in making the new worker-management co-operative function in the face of outdated attitudes toward roles and responsibilities. This is an impressive, if rare, example of a committed social documentary by the NFB’s Anglophone filmmakers.

By: Peter Morris