Curating the Films

Music has been added to what were silent films and they have been edited for pacing, to suit contemporary viewing. However, no scenes were omitted, and the narrative sequence of each film is unaltered. Two approaches were used for adding music. Six films selected and edited in 1993 have music that was commissioned from a local composer. The other fifteen films, most selected more recently, feature recordings from the period in which the film was made, synced to the visual narrative. There is evidence suggesting that many ‘silent’ films were accompanied with live music when they were shown. It is not then, anachronistic, for these films to be presented in this manner.

The Films and the Motion Picture Bureaux

All but two films featured on The Moving Past website were produced by the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau, (OMPB) formed in 1917, and the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau, (CGMPB) created in 1918. This Bureau was called the Exhibits and Publicity Bureau prior to 1923. 

The Exhibit and Publicity Bureau, the federal entity, was created through an Order-in-Council. Part of the Trade & Commerce Department, it was to “to advertise abroad Canada's scenic attractions, agricultural resources and industrial development." Its films were also screened widely in the United States, at, for example, scientific and industry conferences throughout the 1920s. 

The OMPB films were made to educate “farmers, school children, factory workers and other classes", and to “give instruction in all branches of agriculture, etc., fruit growing and advertise the resources of the province and to encourage the building of highways and other public works, and other subjects if made more useful with motion pictures.” 

The films of both motion picture bureaux were shown at venues like the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), country fairs, classrooms, churches and movie theatres. Any group could borrow any OMPB film at no charge except for the transportation costs.

These were the first state-sponsored film organizations in the world. Demand for Canadian-made newsreels about Canada’s troops overseas during World War I had alerted authorities that audiences were interested in viewing Canadian content. Concern about the American film industry’s influence and quick development was another motivating factor. Millions of dollars were being spent importing American films. 

World War One had a profound and long-lasting impact on Canadian society. Fundraising and war bond drives used film to motivate their audiences. Their effectiveness did not go unnoticed.  As the war ended, large numbers of veterans returned home. Many were re-deployed in agriculture and industry.  The films played an instructional role in their re-integration. These productions served as introductions to various forms of work for the public as well. They were tools for socialization, as well as entertainment. “It was the duty of every Canadian” declared the Globe, “to see these wonderful pictures about their very own Canada.” 

In October 2025 the original fifteen films will increase to eighteen. In November 2025 three new films about British Columbia will be added to the collection. Two of them, Old Logging Mills (1930) and To the Ports of the World Through Vancouver (1927), were not made by either of the government-sponsored motion picture bureaus. These details are discussed in the sections of the website that present those films. 

None of these films engage in overt political discussions, but there are certainly implicit political messages. Unions are invisible, even when the industries being featured had active unions. Similarly, protest or resistance to the mechanization that many of the films celebrate, is non-existent. Their absence was no doubt, an embedded message for the audience.  

Screenings for school-age children were organized widely for many of the films. Other productions were exported to the United States, Great Britain and many other countries, especially by the Canadian government bureau. The wholesome messages in many of the productions stood in contrast to crude and crass films coming from the United States. Horace Brittain, Director of Municipal Research, predicted in 1920 that “in 25 years there would not be a public school in the country which has not its motion picture machine” and “there won’t be one teacher who is unable to run it” Brittain announced, “There will be “text-films” as well as “text-books”. 

Beginning in 1925 the Canadian National Exhibition featured a special venue in which to view these films. Five thousand people a day saw the Ontario Bureau films in 1929, it was reported. The Chair of the OMPB noted in 1930 that film “as an agency of instruction was beyond compare” and “you can get more in a motion-picture in ten minutes than you could say in class in an hour.” Advocates observed that between 200 to 400 students could watch the films at a time, and they were very well behaved. This industry, it was noted, “has a great potentiality.”

The motion picture bureaux were examples of a shift in cultural production, along with recorded music and radio broadcasting, both of which expanded dramatically. The state sought to influence how viewers thought about issues directly, through the choice of subject matter and style of presentation. Audiences were influenced by the messages, imagery and ideology that was germane to their content. 

Both bureaux had invested in technology designed for silent filmmaking. The CGMPB faded away by the mid-1930s, as ‘talkies’ began to dominate the marketplace. The National Film Board was created in 1941. The OMPB was abruptly closed in 1934 by the Hepburn Government as a cost-cutting move. All the films and records of the Ontario Bureau were ordered destroyed, so it is somewhat miraculous that they survived at all. This was due to the efforts of a Roman Catholic priest near North Bay who purchased the Ontario collection to show to his congregation. A commercial film production company purchased them thirty years later. They were later acquired by the Library and Archives Canada, beginning in the late 1960s, following a Montreal fire in 1967, which destroyed millions of feet of Canada’s early films.