Beryl Fox (born December 10, 1931) is a Canadian documentary

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

and

film producer A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, di ...

Biography

Fox was born in 1931 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. After graduating from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

she was hired by the CBC and worked there from 1962 to 1966, first as a script assistant and researcher and then as a film director. Fox had a gift for understanding contemporary social and political conflicts. She was the first Canadian to do in depth, and frequently critical, explorations of the Vietnam War, race riots, and feminism in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. She has won three

Canadian Film Award The Canadian Film Awards were the leading Canadian cinema awards from 1949 until 1978. These honours were conducted annually, except in 1974 when a number of Quebec directors withdrew their participation and prompted a cancellation. In the 1970s ...

s; the first for '' Summer in Mississippi'' in 1965, a film about the civil rights movement and the second and third awards for her best-known film, '' The Mills of the Gods: Viet Nam'' in 1966. The film was shot entirely on location while the war was ongoing and had no narration and no archive footage. She continued making documentaries for another decade before branching out into producing feature films for mainstream audiences, beginning with 1981's '' Surfacing''. She was married to Douglas Leiterman, a CBC news producer whose show ''

This Hour Has Seven Days ''This Hour Has Seven Days'' was a CBC Television news magazine that ran from 1964 to 1966, offering viewers in-depth analysis of the major social and political stories of the previous week. The show, inspired by the BBC and NBC-TV satire seri ...

'' aired several of Fox's documentary films, until his death in 2012."Canadian producer, journalist Douglas Leiterman dies"

CP24 CP24 is a Canadian English-language specialty news channel owned by Bell Media, a subsidiary of BCE Inc. and operated alongside the Bell-owned CTV Television Network's owned-and-operated television stations CFTO-DT (CTV Toronto) and CKVR-DT ( ...

, December 31, 2012.

Selected filmography

*''One More River'' (1963) *''Three on a Match'' (1963) *''The Single Woman and the Double Standard'' (1964) *'' Summer in Mississippi'' (1964) *'' The Mills of the Gods: Viet Nam'' (1965) *''Youth: In Search of Morality'' (1966) *''Saigon: Portrait of a City'' (1967) *''Last Reflections on a War'' (1968) *''Memorial to Martin Luther King'' (1969) *''North with the Spring'' (1970) *''The Visible Woman'' (1975)

References

External links

*
Complete Beryl Fox Filmography at CITWFThe Documentary conscience: a casebook in film making By Alan RosenthalThe women's companion to international film
By

Annette Kuhn Annette Frieda Kuhn, FBA is a British author, cultural historian, educator, researcher, editor and feminist. She is known for her work in screen studies, visual culture, film history and cultural memory. She is Professor and Research Fellow in ...

, Susannah Radstone
Guide to the cinema(s) of Canada By Peter Rist
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox, Beryl 1931 births Living people Canadian women film directors Canadian documentary film producers Film directors from Winnipeg Canadian documentary film directors Canadian Broadcasting Corporation people University of Toronto alumni Canadian women film producers Canadian women documentary filmmakers