Book review of "Challenge for Change: activist documentary at the National Film Board of Canada" edited by Thomas Waugh, Michael Brendan Baker, Ezra Winton. Montréal : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010. ISBN: 978-0-7735-3662-3.

[Extract] In 1967 the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) created an ambitious participatory media programme called Challenge for Change/ Societe Nouvelle (CFC/SN) that sought to give disenfranchised and marginalized communities of Canada a voice by giving them access to the media. Post World War II, the NFB had prided itself on its activist agenda and 1960s technological and cultural developments inspired the development of CFC/SN, with a vision that the process of filmmaking not only document social issues, but play an active role in them as well. Challenge for Change was envisioned in three streams with one stream forming a platform whereby non-media professionals in Canada could make films about their own concerns and problems (1), with NFB support. This was a process that John Grierson observes as the shift from films made about people to films made with people.(2) For directors such as Colin Low and others involved, the Challenge for Change studio represented a return to the Grierson philosophy of government-sponsored documentary, with a new twist – not only would the government inform the people, but the people would also inform the government, a rare example of a government funding public criticisms of itself (as George Stoney recalls when asked, "Does the government know you're making these films?" he replies – "Know! They’re paying for it" (p. 318)). Low wrote in 1972: "The means of communication – real two-way communication – must be made accessible to ordinary people for dialogue in meaningful local debate. In this way, we could generate a much more vigorous problem-solving capacity based upon local initiative and creativity." (3