Reunion in Dunnville

This film started out as a community project involving my students at Sheridan College. On one level, it documents a remarkable reunion of people from as far away as Australia and New Zealand who converge on a small town in rural Ontario, where 2,436 Allied pilots received their training during World War II. A subtext emerges in the dialectic between our own newsreel footage of the event in 1979, and home movies shot by the veterans, including reunions at the base before it became a giant turkey farm. This allows for some revealing interruptions of conventional documentary codification, and serves as a reminder of the complex nature of film, time, and memory. (RH) “Working with material from several sources posed special problems … but Hancox has met the challenge with skill and imagination. The result is an interesting film in which both the filmmaker and the veterans can take justifiable pride.” – Hamilton Spectator “… certainly animated characters. Footage … from a 1956 reunion is first-rate, sidesplitting slapstick. This soars above a home movie and does a three-point landing.” – Ontario Film Association Newsletter Awards: Golden Sheaf Nomination, Yorkton Film Festival