"[2] Many of Canada's most notable women filmmakers passed through Studio D, as employees, freelancers, or trainees, including Bonnie Sherr Klein, Lynne Fernie, and Justine Pimlott.

Great Grand Mother was the first film released by Studio D, but it had already begun production by independent filmmakers Anne Wheeler and Lorna Rasmussen through their company, Filmwest Associates.

A portrayal of early women settlers on the Canadian prairies, it combined interviews, recreations, and voice-over narratives from archival letters and diaries.

The head of the committee pronounced it boring.”[6] The films produced in the beginning were very much within the cinema verité tradition of the NFB and its social documentary program Challenge for Change.

[10] More women joined the Studio, including Challenge for Change veterans Bonnie Sherr Klein (who had left the NFB but returned for the chance to work in an all-woman environment) and Dorothy Todd Hénaut.

Freelancers who collaborated with Studio D included Anne Henderson, Irene Angelico, Donna Read, Sharon McGowan, and Moira Simpson.

Directed by Bonnie Sherr Klein and featuring Lindalee Tracey, it was a foray into various facets of the sex entertainment industry and the intensifying feminist debates about pornography.

The film featured interviews with women working at Times Square's notorious Show World Sex Emporium,[12] porn star Marc Stevens ("Mr. 10½"), and Hustler photographer Suze Randall.

Critics complained, however, that their voices were drowned out by a cacophony of American anti-porn feminists including Susan Griffin, Robin Morgan, Kate Millett and Kathleen Barry.

[14] Not a Love Story was the first Studio D film to receive international theatrical release, including a benefit premiere in New York City for Ms.

[19] Behind the Veil, a sprawling documentary “which seeks nothing more than to examine critically the history of women in the Christian church of the Western world,” provided a rare glimpse into the lives of cloistered and apostolic nuns.

[22] In her review of Not a Love Story, Susan Barrowclough outlined the formulaic approach to filmmaking by Studio D: "realist narrative, cinema verité, and underlying moral didactism, claim and counter-claim all sewn up and closed with a reassuring voice-over.

"[24] Janis Cole and Holly Dale recalled Shannon insisting that their film, Hookers on Davie, focus only on women forced into sex work and cut out trans workers.

However, NFB's Commissioner, François Macerola claimed that he was "not ready for an employment equity program involving the disabled, natives and visible minorities" and would maintain focus on women for the foreseeable future.

[30] At the same time, he criticized Studio D in his report to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Culture and Communication, and declared that he was deliberately holding back funds to them.

[34] In 1989, with the support of Kathleen Shannon, Fraticelli transferred the remaining six resident Studio D filmmakers to other NFB units: Bonnie Sherr Klein (who, at that time was on long-term disability), Dorothy Todd Hénaut, Margaret Wescott, Susan Huycke, Cynthia Scott, and Beverly Shaffer.

While only seventeen films were released during Fraticelli's tenure, among them were Shaffer's last film for Studio D (in production prior to Fraticelli's appointment), the groundbreaking documentary on child sexual abuse, To a Safer Place, and Gail Singer's short excerpt from Abortion: Stories From North and South, A Mother and Daughter on Abortion, which renewed public criticism of Studio D by REAL Women of Canada.

It was left to Ginny Stikeman, one of the original members of Studio D, to oversee the long decline and eventual closure of the women's unit as the last of its Executive Producers.

NIF was only supposed to represent Studio D's contribution to a NFB-wide effort to improve racial and ethnic diversity but under Macerola it became the only program, further stretching its budget.

"[35] Their first program coordinator, Reneé Du Plessis, herself a light-skinned woman of colour originally from South Africa, was fired and subsequently sued the NFB (the case was settled out of court).

"[35] Despite criticisms of structural and cultural racism, the New Initiatives in Film series brought to light both emergent filmmakers and heretofore untold stories.

NIF also oversaw the production of Michelle Wong's Return Home (1992) and Doris Nipp's Under the Willow Tree, both explorations of Chinese immigrant women.

Loretta Todd's film Hands of History (1994) was a lush profile of four major Indigenous feminist artists, including Jane Ash Poitras.

Norma Bailey's Women Under Shadows (1991) traced Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh's journey to discover her Indigenous great grandmother, Margaret Taylor, who was the consort to Hudson’s Bay Company Governor George Simpson.

While its president, Claude Joli-Coeur, insisted that director and producer credits were near parity, he acknowledged that production personnel statistics were much worse, with women representing only 24% of editors and 12% of cinematographers.

The NFB claimed they were uniquely situated to meet an ambitious target of full parity in credits and funding by 2020 because they were "a Canadian film industry leader in gender equality that made history in 1974 when it established Studio D, the world’s first production unit devoted exclusively to work by women filmmakers.

They prove that when a space is carved out for women to pursue filmmaking, they can succeed on their own terms, and create cinema that is distinct, powerful and every bit as full of creative ideas as films made by men.

It was billed as an opportunity to "revisit the studio’s monumental impact on feminist film culture and look to the future of inclusive, diverse docs that implement social change in Canada.

[53] Many argue that its institutional foundation and Shannon's own feminist ideology prevented it from taking more aesthetic and political risks, particularly in its explorations of race and sexual identity, until very late.

"[57] Louise Roy Irene Angelico Anne Henderson Lorna Rasmussen Mary Daemen Tina Horne Joan Hutton Sharon Madden Terre Nash Margaret Pettigrew Patricia Robertson Candace Savage Nicole Brossard Margaret Wescott Anne Henderson Ginny Stikeman Abbey Jack Neidik Sidonie Ker Bonnie Sherr Klein Lorraine Segato Roushell Goldstein Bonnie Sherr Klein Kim Blain Lorna Boschman Christene Browne Alison Burns Janis Cole Shawna Dempsey Ann Marie Fleming Angèle Gagnon Gwendolyn Jennifer Kawaja Frances Leeming Sook-Yin Lee Mary Lewis Catherine Martin Lorri Millan Michelle Mohabeer Violet McNaughton Andrée Pelletier Cathy Quinn Tracy Traeger Ginny Stikeman Aerlyn Weissman Janice Brown Patricia Diaz Danielle Dyson Nicole Hubert Barbara Hutchinson Cheryl Sim Erna Buffie