Julian Biggs

Julian Biggs 19201972 was a director and producer with the National Film Board of Canada and its first Director of English Production Over the course of his 20year career he created 146 films two of which Herring Hunt 1953 and Paddle to the Sea 1966 were nominated for Academy Awards His film 23 Skidoo 1964 received two BAFTA nominations including the BAFTA United Nations award Biggs was born and raised in Port Perry in southern Ontario When World War II broke out in 1939 he joined the Canadian Army and then transferred to the Canadian Navy where he spent the rest of the war serving on minesweepers He then attended the University of Toronto and in 1951 was hired as a production assistant by the National Film Board of Canada He directed his first film The Son a year later From 1956 to 1958 Biggs produced the Perspective series paralleled by the similar series in French Passepartout which was 35 30minute dramas with an emphasis on social themes such as alcoholism drug addiction adolescence the elderly racial problems etc One such film Monkey on the Back directed by Biggs was a bleak tragic story of mans unsuccessful struggle to free himself from drug addiction Similar to Robert Andersons Drug Addict 1948 which had been banned in the US it was the type of film that caused the NFB to reconsider its role in producing socially relevant films There was an unwritten policy and priority to shift away from social realism to the art of film