Bannerfilm
1972 · 9m · Canada
Directed by Donald Winkler
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, theatrical
Designer Norman Laliberté stitches varicoloured fabric pieces in his workroom, assembling figures and symbols that grow into a bold, glowing banner.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 9-minute film about a guy sewing fabric scraps into a banner sounds like the most boring thing ever—and Winkler somehow makes it *work* by treating craft itself as the subversion, turning labor into ceremony and daring you to find it tedious.
Bannerfilm sits squarely in the essay-film tradition of the NFB's structural documentary practice, where the camera's patient observation of a maker's hands becomes a meditation on form, process, and the transformation of materials into meaning.
The real move here is the decision to shoot the banner *growing* under Laliberté's hands rather than revealing the finished object—that choice to foreground accumulation and assembly over destination is what elevates this from craft documentation into something almost ritualistic.