Shannon, Kathleen, 1935-1998 : Kathleen Shannon was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, on 11 November 1935, the daughter of Laura Jean Jamieson, a music teacher, and Jack (Jackie) Donald Shannon, a mining engineer who upon graduating from the University of British Columbia acquired what were considered to be used-up gold mines and brought them to profitability by applying innovative technology. Between the years 1935 and 1940 the young Kathleen spent much of her life in transit from one mine to another across northern Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia. One of these, at Lake of the Woods, Ontario, called Goldwood, would eventually become the subject of an autobiographical film of the same name written and directed by Kathleen Shannon in the mid-seventies.
In the early 1940s, when her father joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, Kathleen and her younger sisters, Dorothy (who became the writer and activist Dorothy O'Connell) and Mary Ruth, moved with their mother to Vancouver to live with their maternal grandmother, Laura Jamieson, a political activist particularly noted for her work in suffragette causes. The family remained in Vancouver for the duration of the war and a fourth daughter, Elizabeth, was born there. Kathleen developed her interest in music by taking up the clarinet and early in 1946 she was one of the first girls to play with the Kitsalano Boys Band when it opened its ranks to female musicians. The family rejoined Jackie Shannon later that same year at Rivers Air Base, Manitoba, where Kathleen entered junior high school and pursued her interest in band music, rehearsing on occasion with the Air Force band. When her father was posted to Ottawa in the early 1950s, she joined the Fisher Park High School band, where she attended school, and formed her own dance band which played everything from Dixie to the standard dance band tunes of the day.
During the summer of 1952, Kathleen Shannon found employment cataloguing background music at Crawley Films. Cataloguing soon led to editing and various other small jobs at the company. Always ambivalent towards formal study, when her peers returned to school in the fall, Kathleen Shannon, not yet seventeen years old, decided to stay at Crawley's and pursue a career in filmmaking. Because of the small and informal working environment, Kathleen Shannon received an excellent apprenticeship at Crawley's (see archival record: Interview Transcript - 'Eyes open'). In 1956, after four and a half years learning the basics of sound and music editing, Shannon was invited to join the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). In 1963, Shannon began working as a picture editor for the NFB and seven years later she was given her first opportunity to direct.
The product of Shannon's directorial début was 'Goldwood', an autobiographical memory film about a woman's search for her early self, employing a combination of paintings and live footage. Written and directed by Shannon in 1970, the film was released in 1974 and won an award at Niagara-on-the-Lake. Kathleen Shannon's next directing opportunity came with an NFB decision to commission a one hour film for the Challenge for Change program. While NFB management had conceived of a documentary style film about the working poor, Shannon had a different idea: "What I wanted to do was make a film that would speak about women facing the dilemma I had faced, of having a job that was demanding and a child at home." (Interview Transcript - 'Eyes open'). In order to make her film, Shannon interviewed women from across the country and from different economic and social backgrounds - from a university professor to an unemployed woman on welfare. 'Working mothers' (1974) consisted of a series of eleven short films which reflected the experience of women, and served as a catalyst for dialogue and exploration of the personal lives of women as mothers and workers in contemporary society. The reaction of women to 'Working mothers' was positive and the NFB realized that its constituency of female viewers was much larger than had initially been perceived. With the Status of Women's report (1970), the declaration of International Women's Year (1972), and the increasing momentum of the women's movement, the time seemed propitious for the creation of a new women's studio at the NFB.
Studio D, the women's studio of the National Film Board, was established in the summer of 1974 and Kathleen Shannon was appointed as the studio's first executive producer. Under Shannon's leadership, Studio D became one of the most dynamic studios of the NFB, producing important films not only about women from women's perspectives but films about the human condition in general. Many of these achieved international recognition. The film 'If you love this planet', directed by Terre Nash, won an Academy Award in 1982 in addition to awards at New York, Yorkton and Melbourne. The film 'I'll find a way' (1978), directed by Beverly Schaffer, also won an Academy Award, as did the film 'Flamenco at 5:15' (1984), directed by Cynthia Scott.
In 1986, Kathleen Shannon stepped down as executive director, but continued to work for Studio D and the NFB. That same year she was awarded the Order of Canada and an honorary degree from Queen's University for her work in fostering women's film. Shannon formally retired from the NFB in 1992 and moved back to British Columbia. There she established Hestia's, a guest-house retreat for women, located in the Kootenays near Nelson. From 1993 until 1998, Kathleen Shannon pursued her interests in alternative counselling practices and was an active member in local women's groups and environmental groups. In 1996, Shannon was awarded an honorary degree by York University, followed by an honorary degree the next year from Mount Saint Vincent University. After a brief battle with cancer, Kathleen Shannon died on January 14, 1998 in Kelowna, British Columbia, leaving one son, Krystian Czerniecki, an international lawyer living in France.