The Interactive Documentary in Canada

The history and future of interactive documentary storytelling in Canada.

In the 2010s Canada was a world leader in creating interactive documentaries. By the 2020s many of these celebrated i-docs were rendered inaccessible by obsolete technology. This collection examines the short-lived past and the imagined future of the i-doc and emphasizes its impact on the contemporary film and media landscape in Canada and beyond.

Michael Brendan Baker is professor of film studies at Sheridan College.Mulvogue Jessica :

Jessica Mulvogue is lecturer of film studies at the University of St. Andrews

Michael Brendan Baker is professor of film studies at Sheridan College.

Jessica Mulvogue is lecturer of film studies at the University of St. Andrews.

“Those things most recently outdated tell us much about our present. I-docs reflect their conditions of production: a moment of transition between media paradigms, the new one of which we are now just catching sight of. At stake is not only what these i-docs were but also how they changed our sense of what it means to interact. Baker and Mulvogue are doing a great service by creating a record of this receding moment in Canadian documentary media history; these essays are already an archive for the future.” Jaimie Baron, University of California, Berkeley