Marthe Blackburn

Marthe Blackburn, née Morisset (1916 - 1991) was a Canadian screenwriter from Quebec.[1] A television writer for Radio-Canada and later a film writer for the National Film Board of Canada, she was most noted for her collaborations with director Anne Claire Poirier.[2] Blackburn and Poirier were Genie Award nominees for Best Original Screenplay at the 1st Genie Awards in 1980 for A Scream from Silence (Mourir à tue-tête).[3]

She was the author of "Le retour de l’âge", a short theatrical piece which was part of the collaborative feminist theatre work La nef des sorcières alongside pieces by Luce Guilbeault, France Théoret, Odette Gagnon, Marie-Claire Blais, Pol Pelletier and Nicole Brossard.[4] She was one of the co-directors of the documentary film À qui appartient ce gage?, and had a small acting role in the 1980 film Cordélia.

She was married to composer Maurice Blackburn, with whom she collaborated on the libretto for his opera Une mesure de silence,[5] and was the mother of science fiction writer Esther Rochon.[6]

  1. ^ Blackburn, M. (1983). "Scénariser, ou habiter un écran imaginaire". Nuit blanche, magazine littéraire (10), 46–47.
  2. ^ Francine Prévost, "L’itinéraire cinématographique d’Anne-Claire Poirier". Séquences, Numéro 116, Avril, 1984, p. 12–26.
  3. ^ "Feature film nominations". Ottawa Journal. March 15, 1980. p. 53. Retrieved January 3, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ Louise H. Forsyth, "La nef des sorcières (1976) : l’écriture d’un théâtre expérimental au féminin". L'Annuare théâtrale, Issue 46, Autumn 2009. p. 33–56.
  5. ^ "Canadian Opera Premieres". The Globe and Mail, November 3, 1956.
  6. ^ Gadbois, V. (1986). "Esther Rochon, un grand nom de la SFQ". Québec français (62), p. 22.