Gudrun Parker

Gudrun Bjerring Parker
Gudrun Parker c.1942
Born	(1920-03-16) March 16, 1920 (age 97) Winnipeg, Manitoba
Nationality	Canadian
Other names	Gudrun Bjerring
Alma mater	University of Winnipeg
Occupation	filmmaker, teacher
Known for	Filmmaking, teaching
Spouse(s)	Morten Parker
Children	2

Gudrun Bjerring Parker OC (born March 16, 1920 in Winnipeg) is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker, writer, producer and a recipient of the Order of Canada. She worked on films with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), during the Second World War and in the early 1950s. 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.She married fellow NFB filmmaker Morten Parker. They often worked as a team on films and in 1963 they established a production company together, Parker Film Associates.

While she left the NFB in 1956 to focus on raising her first child Julie, Parker remained active in the filmmaking industry. Her husband travelled to locations and filmed for their production company while she stayed at home producing, editing, and eventually working as a film studies teacher at Vanier College.

Parker attended the University of Winnipeg (then called United College). After graduating, she worked on the hotels and rails beat as a reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. She met documentary filmmaker John Grierson, who was travelling across the country recruiting workers for the NFB. Grierson was impressed with her and interviewed her for a job with the NFB. Parker later said that she didn’t even know the film board existed when she was offered the job.

Parker travelled from Winnipeg to Ottawa to begin working with the NFB in March 1942. 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."

After six months working as an assistant in the cutting room, Parker asked to direct her own film. She secured the funding for the film herself, asking for sponsorship from the Department of National Health and Welfare. Cinematographer Judith Crawley filmed and Parker directed the production, which was called Vitamins A, B, C. The film educated viewers about maintaining nutrition with wartime shortages and featured a great deal of footage of children. She later worked with Graham McInnes on a film called "A Friend for Supper." 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. McInnes was dubious because he thought this notion would encourage children to eat more instead of less but his "misgivings were without foundation," he later wrote. "She shot the film as planned. Despite the equivocal logic it was an instant and continuing success with children — and with adults."