Discover Beyond the Ridge
Discover Beyond the Ridge
Beyond the Ridge is a new, 6-part series of podcasts created to commemorate Remembrance Day 2020. Covering a wide variety of topics, the series allows you to get inside history and explore it fully.
Return to Vimy, Denis McCready, provided by the National Film Board of Canada
Episode 1: Soldiers, Nurses, and the 1918-1919 Pandemic
The inaugural episode in the series fittingly looks at the 1918-1919 flu pandemic and its effect on the population, including the desire to deflect responsibility. “Looking at the emergence of syphilis in the Middle Ages, the French called it the German Disease, the Germans called it the French Disease. […] People always want to think of diseases as coming from outside,” says Kandace Bogaert, Ph.D.
This episode was created by the Vimy Foundation and the NFB in collaboration with Defining Moments Canada.
Episode 2: Women and the War
Episode two explores the relationship between women and the war and features Chloé Poitras-Raymond (UQAM) and Andelina Habel-Thurton (#BVP2019). One aspect they discuss is the difference in women’s roles between the first and second world wars. “During #FWW, women are not integrated in the military. During #WW2, they are. This comes with a military-oriented training. […] Some of them learn to read a map, to drive an ambulance, a motorcycle…” says Poitras-Raymond.
This episode was created by the Vimy Foundation and the NFB in collaboration with Le Club Universitaire de Mtl.
Download Episode 2 (French only)
Episode 3: War and the Environment
In episode three, Dolf Dejong, CEO of the Toronto Zoo, and Rose He (#BVP2019) discuss the the war and the environment, including some of the unintentional effects of the rebuilding effort. “The result of that mass planting of trees (after the war) is that now we have monoculture plantations that are often all aging and dying at the same time. And those monocultures aren’t as robust and resilient to disease,” says Dejong.
This episode was created by the Vimy Foundation and the NFB in collaboration with the Toronto Zoo.
Episode 4: The War Measures Act
The fourth episode features a conversation between Mélanie Morin-Pelletier (Canadian War Museum), and Yaman Awad (#BVP2017) on the War Measures Act and its repercussions for citizens. “In 1914, Canada residents that were born in a country at war with the British Empire were called “enemy aliens” […] They were often described as potential spies, but the danger was, in reality, very low. […] During the First World War, more than 8,500 “enemy aliens” were interned in Canada,” says Morin-Pelletier.
This episode was created by the Vimy Foundation and the NFB in collaboration with the Canadian War Museum.
Download Episode 4 (French only)
Episode 5: Veterans & Commemoration
Episode five of the series discusses Commemoration and Veterans with Dr. Tim Cook, from the Canadian War Museum, and Prasanna Iyengar (#VPA2010). “If you walked the battlefields you see the undetonated shells. You can almost put your hands in the dirt and pull up shrapnel balls and shell fragments. […] It is a sober reminder, I think, of the legacy of war. […] This war that continues to have a hold on our imagination. It’s a war that continues to haunt us,” says Cook.
This episode was created by the Vimy Foundation and the NFB in collaboration with the Canadian War Museum.
Episode 6: Behind the Scenes of Return to Vimy
In the final installment of the Beyond the Ridge series, we explore the making of Return to Vimy, an NFB short film documentary, with its director Denis McCready and Marianne Goyette (#BVP2014). “During the restoration process, we feel that the images are becoming more and more recent. When we finally get the stabilised and calibrated black and white images, we have the illusion that these were taken a few years ago. […] When we put colours on them, the men’s and women’s faces emerged. And then, so did their facial expressions. After the first colourization, it was like I was seeing these images for the first time,” says McCready.
This episode was created by the Vimy Foundation and the National Film Board of Canada.
Download Episode 6 (French only)
Pour lire cet article en français, cliquez ici.
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