Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed

Jan 1, 1979

0h 57m

★ 0.0

Overview

Bureaucracy shapes our lives and guides us from the cradle to the grave. This documentary lays bare the idiosyncrasies of bureaucracy, whether in Canada, Austria, Hungary, the Vatican or the Virgin Islands. It also attempts to make the functioning of the public service more comprehensible. The absurdities of bureaucratic behaviour are exposed with humour and irreverence.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

CBC

ONF | NFB

Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Narrator (voice)

Donald Brittain

The Inglewood Police Department's 1960s video, "LSD: Trip or Trap?" is a classic of the genre. Alex sez, "It's a story of two friends who enjoy flying model planes, except that one becomes an 'acidhead' so he can be 'groovy' with the other acidheads. The other does research into LSD and decides it's a 'bummer'."

No Image

7.0

Little Injustices: Laura Nader Looks at the Law

Jan 23, 1981

Anthropologist Laura Nader's first field trip to a Zapotec Indian village in Oaxaca, Mexico, in the late 1950s, led her to study problem-solving in the local courts. There, "little injustices" were the meat of everyday courtroom life.

0.0

Nurseries, raid on babies

Sep 2, 2025

Since nurseries were opened up to the private sector in the early 2000s, early childhood has become a lucrative business for its voracious players. As scandals involving abuse and embezzlement of public funds multiply, we investigate the excesses of deregulation, which has turned babies into cash machines.

No Image

7.0

Say No to Strangers

Jan 1, 1981

A short film to warn children of sexual predators.

0.0

Minerva

Jun 1, 2021

Severely battered from the Beirut Port Explosion on August 4th, Minerva passed away eight days later. Her son Joseph, while still grieving for his loss, sunk into a long and absurd bureaucratic path through the inept system that disowned his mother as a victim of the blast. Minerva is gone. The explosion has snatched her soul, and the city walls have not yet recognized her as a martyr. There is no poster of her smiling face among those of the victims. Their faces are memories that will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Perhaps her son, devastated by her passing, seeks to etch her image into the city's memory. Perhaps he is seeking some confession to the crime. This is a place that casts out its children, whether dead or alive.

0.0

Dude, Where's My Bus?

Nov 27, 2024

Filmmaker Gio Petti takes an in-depth look at the city's troublesome transit system in his documentary, Dude, Where's My Bus?. His nearly 2 year-long independent investigation delves into the frustrations of daily commuters in Ottawa and more deeply explores the systemic issues plaguing OC Transpo and their effects on the community. Beginning in the South End Suburbs of Ottawa, Dude, Where's My Bus? peels back layers leading to a broader investigation into issues plaguing the once model transit system. From late buses in neglected areas of the city, sprawl and the greenbelt, to the ever more controversial Confederation Line and the P3 system that built it, Petti aims to explore the impact of policy missteps and broken promises on Ottawa's transit users, with an optimistic look to the future.

8.0

Nila's Dream in the Garden of Eden

Apr 11, 2024

Leyla and her six-year-old daughter Nila live in the holy city of Mashhad in Iran. Nila is the result of a temporary marriage, which allows a man to marry a woman even if he is already married. Children born from such a relationship are legally non-existent. As long as the father does not recognize the child, no birth certificate can be issued and Nila cannot attend school. The documentary depicts Leyla's tireless efforts to clarify Nila's legal status in order to offer her a perspective for her future. In a never-ending bureaucratic battle, Leyla fights not only against the legal system, but also against a judgmental society.

7.2

Juvenile Court

Jun 4, 1973

"Juvenile Court" shows the complex variety of cases before the Memphis Juvenile Court: foster home placement, drug abuse, armed robbery, child abuse, and sexual offenses. The sequences illustrate such issues as community protection vs. the desire for rehabilitation, the range and the limits of the choices available to the court, the psychology of the offender, and the constitutional and procedural questions involved in administering a juvenile court.

0.0

Berlin Ulysses

Mar 25, 2024

Successfully completed your studies - now what? Raffly already has a lucrative job offer from a large German company, but neither an apartment nor a work permit.

7.3

16 Acres

Sep 23, 2012

The dramatic inside story of the monumental collision of interests at Ground Zero in the decade after 9/11.

4.6

LSD: Insight or Insanity?

Dec 31, 1967

Documentary about the potentially dangerous and unpredictable drug LSD. Various experts discuss how LSD is made and the hazards involved in using it while avid users explain why they enjoy taking it.

7.0

A Good American

Sep 23, 2015

A Good American tells the story of the best code-breaker the USA ever had and how he and a small team within NSA created a surveillance tool that could pick up any electronic signal on earth, filter it for targets and render results in real-time while keeping the privacy as demanded by the US constitution.

7.3

Welfare

Sep 23, 1975

WELFARE shows the nature and complexity of the welfare system in sequences illustrating the staggering diversity of problems that constitute welfare: housing, unemployment, divorce, medical and psychiatric problems, abandoned and abused children, and the elderly. These issues are presented in a context where welfare workers as well as clients struggle to cope with and interpret the laws and regulations that govern their work and life.

No Image

9.5

Under the Law: The Hitchhike

Jan 1, 1973

After receiving an anonymous phone call, the cops pick up a young woman who is wandering around alone in the desert. She tells them that she was given a lift by a stranger, who abandoned her there. Or are there more sides to one story? Part of a series of scare movies called Under the Law, distributed by Disney in the 1970s.

4.9

Case Study: Amphetamines

Dec 31, 1969

A man talks about his addiction to amphetamines and illustrates his struggle by his sudden inability to fix a radio.

5.4

Case Study: LSD

Dec 31, 1969

A young girl relates what happened during her first LSD trip, when – among other things – her food began talking to her.

6.3

Driving to the Edge

Apr 27, 2012

Between 2007 and 2011, 725 Quebecers aged 16 to 24 were killed in car accidents. Excessive speed and alcohol were involved in half of these deaths. To try to understand what is going on in these young drivers' heads when they get behind the wheel, host and documentary filmmaker Paul Arcand met with some of them. On one hand, he gives a voice to these young people who love driving fast. On the other hand, he provides a forum for two accident victims who were injured both physically and psychologically. Finally, the director meets the mother of little Bianca Leduc, who was killed by a drunk driver while she was in the care of her babysitter, and the parents of Michael Borduas, 23, who is severely disabled from an accident.

Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed Trailers