Move Your Mind

Theatre is heady stuff. A single exposure can change your life. When Paul Thompson was 14, working on his uncle's farm, he was given a ticket for the Stratford Festival. The rest is cultural history... Fifty years later, it's hard to imagine Canadian theatre without Thompson's inspired leadership. From Theatre Passe Muraille to the National Theatre School, he's mentored generations of actors and plawrights, forging a vibrant and distinctly Canadian theatre tradition.

This film offers a musical, tongue-in-cheek retelling of the life of Tony, Olivier and Dora Award-winning director, writer and composer Des McAnuff. Using the song "The Wind and the Rain" as a script, the film begins with Des unaccompanied and builds to a grand finale in true Shakespearean tradition. The stylistic approach pays tribute to a time of limited means and creative ingenuity, blending film and theatrical language to create a surreal mise en scène. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada in co-operation with the National Arts Centre and the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Foundation on the occasion of the 2012 Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.

You can be Canadian. And you can be famous. But when you are "Canadian famous," like acclaimed actor Eric Peterson, you sometimes find that your face, your name, and your work on TV and on stage aren't always, well, synchronized, in the minds of your fans. This might have something to do with the dominance of the mighty American star-making machinery, which knows no borders. But ultimately, Peterson, whose stints as Billy Bishop or as Oscar on Corner Gas have secured him a place in the nation's cultural treasure trove, chooses to express gratitude to the Canadians who do prize his talents-and sets out, on foot, to thank every single one of them....