A 20-minute documentary about the former Churchill Park Greenhouse Cooperative in Moose Jaw is now available on the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada's website.

Everyone’s Business, directed by Mary Armstrong, was first launched in 1982 and was recently restored and digitized by Collections Curator, Camilo Martín-Flórez.

"The intention of the filmmaker was mainly to portray this co-operative in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan that was inclusive at the time of nine club members that were disabled," he said. "Basically, what the filmmaker showed was that these determined individuals were dynamic and self-sufficient members of society."

Martín-Flórez says the NFB is now restoring films that originate outside of Quebec and Ontario.

"I am putting a lot of effort to restore films made in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia," he explained. "This is one of the films that are part of this initiative and the idea is to get more of these films out, especially before the 1990s. This one is important because Mary Armstrong was also related to Studio D, which was the studio that only included women filmmakers from Canada."

The NFB has roughly 18,000 films in its collection, with about 6,000 now available online. Martín-Flórez notes it could take up to 20 years to upload the remaining films.

"I always say that the NFB is Canada's film family album," he continued. "This film especially is important because not many co-operatives included people that were disabled in the 1980s. We could see that there was already an interest in including everyone in the market in the economic growth of Canada. This is just one example of how much the films from the collection of the NFB are important for Canada and for Canadians."

People worldwide can now stream the film, free of charge for an indefinite time.

The full catalogue of films can be viewed at: https://www.nfb.ca/explore-all-films/

Synopsis:
The Churchill Park Greenhouse Cooperative in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, is a small produce business, much like any other trying to survive in a deteriorating economy. What makes it special is that eight out of the nine coop members are disabled, either mentally or physically. Growing, washing, drying and packing vegetables, handling sales and bookkeeping, paying bills and sometimes postponing their own paychecks in order to see the coop through hard financial times, these determined individuals have found a way to make themselves active, integrated, self-supporting members of society. Theirs is an endeavour to be admired by all audiences.

Everyone's Business, Mary Armstrong, provided by the National Film Board of Canada