John N. Smith

Sitting in Limbo

The National Film Board of Canada was one of the guiding forces behind Sitting in Limbo. Fabian Gibbs plays a black Montreal college student forced to leave school when his girlfriend Pat Dillon becomes pregnant. Gibbs resents this interruption in his plans, but he becomes a very good provider. The responsibilities of parenthood, alas, irreparably damage the boy-girl relationship. Filmed in a quasidocumentary manner, Sitting in Limbo seems predestined to win film festival awards--as indeed it has.

The Masculine Mystique

This feature-length drama explores the changing role of men in today's society by delving into the stories of 4 men and their relationships with women.

First Winter

First Winter is a 1982 Canadian short film directed by John N. Smith. With the father away, an Irish immigrant family struggle to survive their first winter in the Canadian wild. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

The New Boys

This short documentary takes us to St. John's Cathedral Boys' School, at Selkirk, Manitoba, one of the most demanding outdoor schools in North America. As the school can’t accommodate every student wishing to enroll, boys of 13 to 15 years old are put through an initiation tougher than they have ever faced. They paddle canoes through some 500 kilometers of wilderness in 2 weeks, portaging and camping all the way, thereby learning vital outdoor lore, cooperation and self-confidence.

The Jews of Winnipeg

This short documentary tells the story of the first Jewish settlers to Winnipeg, people who fled European persecution at the turn of the century and founded a new community in a Canadian city.

Starblanket

At twenty-six, Noel Starblanket was one of the youngest Indigenous chiefs in North America--twice elected chief of the Starblanket Reserve, and also elected vice-president of all-Saskatchewan Indigenous organization. His great-grandfather's advice was to "learn the wit and cunning of the White man." That he did. Here he is seen in action, a chief with a briefcase, working with government officials for grants, running for public office, talking down his opposition, and solving the domestic problems of his reserve.

Some Natives of Churchill

This short documentary zooms in on Churchill, Manitoba, on the western curve of Hudson Bay. The town boomed for a while after it became the railhead seaport for the shipment of Prairie grain. It also changed the way of life of the Native Indian and Inuit population.