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Goin’ Down the Road

Written by William Fruet and Donald Shebib

Directed by Donald Shebib

Canada, 1970

Donald Shebib’s landmark 1970 drama Goin’ Down the Road was a watershed moment in Canadian national cinema, in part because it proved that there could be one. The very notion of a Canadian national cinema was relatively new when the film was released. Though the National Film Board (Nfb) was establish in the late 1930s, it was only in the 1950s that its focus shifted from war-effort propaganda to a very specific form of national soul-searching, wondering aloud who we were and what our place in the world was. The collective attempt at pinpointing Canada’s national identity would reach a fever pitch with the Centennial just around the corner, but ended up yielding precious few concrete answers (though it wasn’t for lack of trying, as Nfb-produced works like Helicopter Canada, commissioned specifically for Canada’s 100th birthday,...

BAFTA handed out its TV Awards in London this evening with ITV drama Broadchurch scoring a trifecta of prizes. The series, which is heading into production on its second season in the UK and is being remade in the U.S. as Gracepoint, won best drama, best actress for Olivia Colman and best supporting actor for David Bradley. The wins marked Colman’s third BAFTA and Bradley’s first. Colman’s previous nods were for comedy Twenty Twelve and drama Accused. Netflix had its first ever BAFTA win with Breaking Bad voted Best International series. Netflix is the series broadcaster in the UK where BAFTA late last year said it was updating its rules to include web-based broadcasters to be eligible for TV awards. Channel 4 drama Southcliffe and the same network’s comedy The It Crowd led the overall nominations going in with four nods apiece. Southcliffe‘s Sean Harris...

Doctor Who star Arthur Darvill is to appear in new BBC drama The Paradise. The period series - starring Joanna Vanderham and Sarah Lancashire - tells the story of a love affair against the background of England's first department store opening in the 1870s. Darvill will make a guest appearance in the fifth episode as Bradley Burroughs, a barber who comes into conflict with the dashing Moray (Emun Elliot). When Moray seeks to extend The Paradise by buying up Bradley's shop, the barber seeks to become his (more)...

Film company in wrangle over money as latest feature, The City of Your Final Destination, opens to mixed reviews

Once upon a time, Merchant Ivory was renowned for its hugely successful and elegantly understated studies of hearts breaking slowly and silently beneath layers of repression and period tailoring.

But five years after the death of its producer, Ismail Merchant, the firm is facing two unseemly lawsuits that have more in common with John Grisham than Em Forster, while its latest film has opened to lukewarm reviews after a financially fraught production.

Director James Ivory is embroiled in a legal battle over a $350,000 (£240,000) contract linked to The City of Your Final Destination, his first feature without the support of his original partner.

In a writ filed at the supreme court in New York, former Merchant Ivory producer Richard Hawley claims he has been airbrushed out of the credits for the film,...