Most viewers can name a few famous animators. Few can name the women who built the craft in Canada, set new methods, and won global awards. That silence isn’t harmless; it changes what gets taught, saved, and funded. If you care about film history, access, and fair credit, this record matters to you.
Early Trailblazers in Canadian Animation (1930s–1960s)
NFB opened in 1939. Its early studios even depended on women in art, paint, camera and sound. Evelyn Lambart was promoted to that floor to jointly direct with Norman McLaren. They combined music, maths and light precisely in their shorts – Begone Dull Care (1949) and Rythmetic (1956). Lambart subsequently produced solo shorts, and trained new personnel.
In Ottawa, Crawley Films, outside Montreal, employed women to do drawn and stop motion work to feed commercials and sitcoms. This was the prelude to the Canadian Cinema: small crews, solid craft, and a civic studio that favored ability over flash. Women were not an afterthought; the output and style was not based on them being marginal to the product.
Women Animators of the 1970s and 1980s: Breaking New Ground
Caroline Leaf moved paint-on-glass and sand. Mordecai Richler directed the film, The Street (1976), which was nominated at the Academy Awards and demonstrated that hand-made frames could be very dramatic. Janet Perlman was sharp and with clean timing; The Tender Tale of Cinderella Penguin (1981) got an Oscar nod and was widely used in schools. Direct-to-film was studied by Lynn Smith and other practitioners and cut-outs. Studio D was the branch that concentrated on documentaries after 1974 but its championing of women directors also swayed hire across the NFB units. These shorts were shown at festivals in Annecy and Ottawa and attracted curators and TV buyers to Canadian work.
The 1990s and 2000s: Recognition, Festivals, and Missed Opportunities
Digital tools sped up post work, yet many women still fought for credits, childcare support, and fair budgets. Results stood out anyway:
| Artist | Work | Year | Note |
| Wendy Tilby & Amanda Forbis | When the Day Breaks | 1999 | Cannes Short Film Palme d’Or; Oscar nominee |
| Torill Kove | The Danish Poet | 2006 | Academy Award winner |
| Michèle Cournoyer | Le chapeau | 1999 | Bold personal short; festival wins |
Ottawa International Animation Festival (founded 1976) kept awarding women-led films. Yet TV deals often went to safer brands, and many shorts stayed stuck in limited runs. Archival access lagged; prints sat in vaults while new audiences moved online.
Contemporary Legacy and Ongoing Struggles
In 2016, the NFB declared a gender parity policy and required 50% female directors and creators projects (and spend) by 2019. That commitment supported new teams, but there are still gaps. Other important functions such as layout, compositing and edit are still submerged under credit lines. Premature careers are blocked by festival travel costs.
Streamers are great at reaching more people, but metadata does not consistently include craft roles, and search does not bring up the name of women. There are 16mm and 35mm prints in archives requiring maintenance and some new scanning. Historic movies die, and studies come to a halt in the absence of steady money. The central barrier today is not talent but access.
Why Their Work Still Matters Today
These films solved hard problems with simple tools – light, glass, paper, sound – skills that aid any studio or classroom. Try this short action list:
- Watch free on NFB.ca; many titles sit there with notes and teacher guides.
- Use frame-by-frame study to learn timing and arcs from The Street and Lambart’s shorts.
- Map credits: list who did art, camera, sound, and edit; then share that list with students.
- Pitch curators: pair one historic short with one new film by a woman; prove the line of craft.
- Log sources and dates; clear notes build trust and make future research faster.
Conclusion: Reclaiming a Place in Canadian Animation History
Fair record is not merely a moral purpose, but a recording of superior craft, enhanced instruction, and more intelligent investment. There are three steps to begin with: choose a film, name all the women on the credits, and write that note with an open connection. Then invite your local library or gallery to screen a 60-minute set with Lambart, Leaf, and another short. Lastly, quote dates, honors and studios in any post or course. Do so, and the label of forgetting will disappear – in favor of clear names and permanent access.