Gudrun Johanna Bjerring Parker OC (March 16, 1920 – November 15, 2022) was a Canadian filmmaker, writer, and producer.
Parker wrote the script for The Stratford Adventure, which was nominated for an academy award, and directed part of Royal Journey, which won a BAFTA.
[1] Although she left the NFB in 1956 to focus on raising her first child Julie, Parker remained active in the filmmaking industry.
[6][Note 1] In his memoir of the early days of the film board, scriptwriter Graham McInnes described Parker as "a very quiet, extremely persistent worker with an outwardly sweet and accommodating approach which masked a truly tremendous tenacity.
According to McInnes the slogan "a friend for supper," was Parker's idea, a way of encouraging Canadian children not to waste food by imagining they were having a 'friend' — a child refugee — over for a meal with them.
According to Canadian Studies scholar Judith Hammill, "the subtext has all kinds of implications about the social formation of masculinity.
Parker later called the film a "historical document" The Stratford Adventure features British director Tyrone Guthrie, and stage stars Irene Worth and Alec Guinness.
It also features a brief appearance from a young Timothy Findley who was part of the original Stratford company and would go on to become a successful novelist and playwright.
Hammill argues that after the war "Gudrun's seminal work in an observational style was an influence on a whole generation of filmmakers who made it a Canadian genre.