
Cynthia Scott
Directing
Biography
Cynthia Scott RCA (born January 1, 1939) is a Canadian award-winning filmmaker who has produced, directed, written, and edited several films with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Her works have won the Oscar and Canadian Film Award. Scott is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Her projects with the NFB are mainly focused on documentary filmmaking. Some of Scott's most notable documentaries for the NFB feature dancing and the dance world including Flamenco at 5:15 (1983), which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) at the 56th Academy Awards in 1984.
Known For

A busload of women become stranded in an isolated part of the Canadian countryside. As they await rescue, they reflect on their lives through a mostly ad-libbed script.
The Company of Strangers

A historical drama depicting an Irish immigrant family’s first winter in Canada, where isolation, illness, and an unforgiving landscape test their will to survive.
First Winter
One of a series of short, open-ended dramas designed to stimulate discussion of values and ethics in relation to modern medical technology. This film considers the chronic patient's right to quality care, and the acutely ill patient's right to a hospital bed. Jean is suffering from multiple sclerosis and is almost completely paralyzed. It seems that the only ones who care about her are the nurses. With the arrival of a patient in need of an operation, it becomes apparent that chronic patients have little priority.
Discussions in Bioethics: A Chronic Problem

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.
Some Natives of Churchill

Here is the village of Ste-Justine as one gifted man, novelist and playwright Roch Carrier, remembers it. In this small corner of Québec there is space in the landscape and in the vast spread of forest, but the fringe of rocks around every field speaks of the backbreaking hardship that was the lot of Carrier's father and of his grandfather before him. This is a nostalgic view of rural Québec.
The Ungrateful Land: Roch Carrier Remembers Ste-Justine

Students in their final year at the National Ballet School of Canada are seen learning the flamenco from Susana and Antonio Robledo, who come to the school every winter to conduct classes which are held after the day's regular schedule has ended.
Flamenco at 5:15

This short documentary profiles 27-year-old Scoggie Watson, a Cape Breton stalwart who clings to the things he cherishes most: the waters of Lake Bras d'Or, his hand-built sailboat, his freedom, and the friends who stayed in Cape Breton instead of leaving for the big cities.
Scoggie

A montage of watercolour images of the work and occasional play of a farm family.
Canada Vignettes: Holidays

A watercolour evocation of a prairie storm coming after a period of severe drought.
Canada Vignettes: The Thirties
At the annual ballet recital, Elizabeth, much to her chagrin, is cast in the part of the boy. The other girls in the ballet class ridicule her; her parents are unsympathetic. Only her free-spirited Aunt Eadie seems to understand.
Jack of Hearts

The House on Jonathan Street is a one-hour documentary that uses the accidental discovery of the significant history of a modest dwelling on a traditionally African-American street in Hagerstown, Maryland to trace the roots of middle America’s racial, economic and social interactions. Through the lens of this house, the rise and fall of the African-American community in small rust belt towns and cities across America is told.