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Episode 1

THE INVASION WILL BE TELEVISED

In September 1970, the CBC broadcast a special presentation, Countdown Canada. In the style of a news-magazine program, it dramatized a peaceful annexation of Canada by the United States. The final hours of Canada’s independence play out on television, with the country’s leading cultural commentators debating these interesting times, interspersed with scenes depicting dissent and rioting by a hostage Canadian populace and the pageantry of surrender. In this video essay, Stephen Broomer examines Countdown Canada against a backdrop of the country’s complex nationhood and the communication theories that were coming to shape the conscience of broadcasting.

Creators

  • Stephen Broomer is a Canadian filmmaker, writer, and film preservationist. He is the founder of the Black Zero Film Collection, restoring and publishing Canadian experimental cinema. His films have screened at Anthology Film Archives, the TIFF Bell Lightbox, Lincoln Center and the Canadian Film Institute. He teaches in the Cinema Studies Institute at the University of Toronto.