Margaret Atwood

The views and thoughts of Canadian writer Margaret Atwood have never been more relevant than today. Readers turn to her work for answers as they confront the rise of authoritarian leaders, deal with increasingly intrusive technologies, and discuss climate change. Her books are useful as survival tools for hard times. But few know her private life. Who is the woman behind the stories? How does she always seem to know what is coming?

On the eve of her 70th birthday, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood set out on an international tour criss-crossing the British Isles and North America to celebrate the publication of her new dystopian novel, The Year of the Flood. Rather than mount a traditional tour to promote a book's publication, Atwood conceived and executed something far more ambitious and revelatory--a theatrical version of her novel. Along the way she reinvented what a book tour could (and maybe should) be. But Atwood wasn't selling books as much as advocating an idea: how humanity must respond to the consequences of an environmentally compromised planet before her work of speculative fiction transforms into prophesy.

Join iconic Canadian artists, activists, actors, and athletes as they share their stories of hope and inspiration in this national salute to our frontline workers and in support of Food Banks Canada’s COVID-19 relief efforts.

The extraordinary life story of science fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) who, in spite of remaining for many years on the sidelines of the mainstream literature, managed to be recognized as one of the most remarkable US writers of all time, due to the relevance of her work and her commitment to the human condition.

Internationally acclaimed author Margaret Atwood has achieved distinction as a poet and as a novelist. Yet she remains a most elusive literary figure. In a quiet encounter on Atwood's island retreat, the film's director seeks to discover what shapes this celebrated Canadian writer's fiction and what motivates her characters.

A drama-documentary telling the story of the celebrated gathering in Geneva, 1816 which led to the creation of both Frankenstein and the first modern vampire story.

The story of Canada's leading poet and the A-Frame cabin he built. Now Canada's leading musicians and artists come together to tell the tale of Al Purdy.

Paris Stories explores the force of fiction for a woman who left Canada and her "good job for a girl" to live in a city where writers weren't viewed with suspicion and asked for three months rent in advance. Considered by both critics and her literary peers to be one of the most talented women writing in the English language, this film offers an intimate glimpse of a fiercely private woman devoted to the compact elegance of the short story.

A dark and delicious foray into Angela Carter's extraordinary life with animation by Peepshow Collective, rare archive and family photos, and contributions from Angela's friends, family, students and admirers.

"Michael Ondaatje called Gwendolyn MacEwen 'the last of the bardic poets'. In the early 60s, she astonished the nascent beat scene at Toronto's Bohemian Embassy with her exotic looks and her accomplished writing style. During her lifetime MacEwen travelled to Greece and Egpyt, married twice, wrote novels, translated Greek verse, took lovers and wrote radio scripts. Above all, she wrote luminous poetry, some of which is sensitively visualized in this thoughtful, pensive work which features insights from Margaret Atwood, Judith Merrill and Rosemary Sullivan." -- Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival

In Margaret Atwood: Once in August, filmmaker Michael Rubbo attempts to discover what shapes the celebrated writer's fiction and what motivates her characters. As one of Canada's most distinguished poets and novelists, Atwood is also one of this country's most elusive literary figures.

For decades, Margaret Atwood has been universally acclaimed as Canada's greatest living writer. Fearlessly outspoken in life and in her work, Atwood has always been an unrelenting provocateur. Now at the age of 77, her star shines brighter and bolder than ever with an explosive television adaptation of her best-known work The Handmaid's Tale, which was first published in 1985. It is a dystopian work of speculative fiction set in the future, which has drawn comparison with aspects of Donald Trump's leadership, in particular the charges of misogyny which have inflamed anti-Trump campaigners across America. Alan Yentob meets Margaret Atwood in Toronto and discovers how a childhood spent between the Canadian wilderness and the city helped shape her vision of herself and the world, set alight her imagination and set her forth on a path to literary success.