Mary Graham is the author of A STUNNING BACKDROP: ALBERTA IN THE MOVIES, 1917-1960.
She is a documentary journalist, film historian, and probable poet based in Calgary, with an Arts degree in Twentieth Century Thought (Philosophy, History and Literature) from the University of New Brunswick, a graduate degree in Journalism from the University of Kings College and a Master of Marine Affairs from the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University.
Mary often appears as a feature film specialist on media venues such as ARTE (the European Culture Channel), CBC RADIO, GLOBAL TV, POSTMEDIA NETWORK, NATIONAL POST, OTTAWA CITIZEN, CALGARY HERALD and ALBERTA VIEWS. She is an alum of multiple programs at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and the Gushul Residency in beautiful downtown Blairmore.
In 2015, Mary began a collaboration (the STONEY FILM PROJECT) with more than a dozen Iyarhe Nakoda Elders from Mini'Thni (Morley) to recapture a century of their unrecognized contributions and establish the historic importance of Indigenous nations to film making in Alberta through ongoing communal film screenings and discussions on the reserve. She was nominated for an Alberta Literary Award for an essay based on their work together, THE PLIGHT AND THE POWER OF THE STONEY NAKODA. The STONEY FILM PROJECT continues today, and has expanded to include other First Nations. A feature-length documentary based on her work with the Elders came out in 2024.
A STUNNING BACKDROP is the unconventional, untold story of Alberta’s film history, defined by the terrible beauty of its pristine landscape, surprisingly important to Hollywood, and recaptured in lost or ignored Indigenous perspectives and stories, with more than 150 film set stills and archival photos of moviemaking from the first half of the 20th century and 40 original photos of filming locations ('movie landscapes') - some as old as a century - around the province as they appear today. It changes our ideas of the early western genre and chronicles why so many auteurs of the first half of the 20th century- Ford, Walsh, Mann, Ince, Borzage etc - came to Alberta to make revision and anti-racism westerns.
A STUNNING BACKDROP is the 2023 Alberta Book Publishers 'Regional Book of the Year' and recipient of the 2022 PUBWEST Bronze Medal for Cover Design. A second book on filmmaking in Alberta after 1960 is underway, with Malick, Penn, Altman, Eastwood, Nolan, Dominik, Costner, Kubrick, Lean, Inarritu etc. A second film based on A STUNNING BACKDROP and the follow up book is also in the works.
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