Donald Brittain

Brittain typically wrote, directed and narrated his documentaries, which included "Memorandum"(1966), covering the horrors of the Holocaust; the Oscar-nominated "Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry" (1976), "The Champions" (1978, 1986), a trilogy on the intertwining lives of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and the late Quebec premier Rene Levesque; and "The King Chronicles" (1988), a six-hour NFB-CBC co-production on the life and career of prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. Nearly 500,000 Canadians tuned in nightly to watch this 3-part docudrama about King. Brittain declined an offer to become director of production at NFB in 1970, setting out instead as an independent filmmaker with the intention to debunk the myth that documentarians were all frustrated feature makers. During a particularly prolific period (1968-1976), he co-directed 15 films and helmed documentaries on the lives of poet Leonard Cohen, baseball pitcher Ferguson Jenkins and union boss Hal Banks.