Toronto Film Review Presents: Meghan McDonald on Land and Sea

The Toronto on Film ! series returns for the Fall 2019 season. It kicks off this Sunday with a trip to the east coast with a special presentation by Meghan McDonald, one of the new students from the Cinema Studies Institute PhD cohort, who will present three episodes from the iconic Newfoundland series, Land and Sea.

Land and Sea has been running since the late 1960s and presents an interesting chronicle about the past and present, history and culture, geography and politics of the province. Along with McDonald's new study on the series from her major research paper from here at the University of Toronto, east-coast filmmaking has been experiencing a renaissance of scholarship from such scholars as Darrell Varga, Jennifer VanderBurgh and Andrew Burke. Come out to see what everyone has been talking about!

We will be showing three episodes: “Buchans Plateau” (‘72) and “A Fortune Bay Christmas” (86), which capture how television mediated between Newfoundland and Labrador tradition and the onset of modernization and industrialization. The third is a more recent episode, titled “Bringing Back Battle Harbour” (2019), which explores how this rural Labrador community has dealt with the aftermath of the fishing industry collapse with a return to tradition in the form of tourism.

The Toronto on Film ! programs is a series that takes place at the Media Commons in Robarts Library whose goal is to promote rarities and the diversity of Canadian cinema and its history. There will be screenings once a month throughout the semesters.