Boys and Girls (short film)

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Movie
Original title Boys and Girls
Country of production Canada
original language English
Publishing year 1983
length 22 minutes
Rod
Director Don McBrearty
script Joe Wiesenfeld
production Seaton McLean
Janice L. Platt
Michael MacMillan
music Louis Natale
camera Alar Kivilo
cut Seaton McLean
occupation

Boys and Girls is a 1983 Canadian drama short film directed by Don McBrearty . It is based on a short story by Alice Munro .

action

13-year-old Margaret lives with her parents and little brother Laird on a remote fox farm in Canada. The father regularly buys horses which he shoots after a short time in order to then process them into fox feed. The siblings secretly watch a horse shooting and Laird reacts scared. Margaret reassures him that the horse must be killed. While Laird is not interested in the work on the farm, Margaret helps feed the foxes, muck out the stables and even offers to turn the pieces of meat through the meat grinder herself in the future . The father allows her and even wants to think about whether Margaret can be there when she next buys a horse . However, the mother complains to the father that Margaret does not help her enough around the house and that she has to learn to do the duties of a woman. She instructs him not to take her to buy horses.

Margaret later sees the men on the farm go to buy horses without her. Instead, she helps her mother and grandmother, who constantly admonishes her to behave more ladylike, with picking up fruit. When she later tells her little brother that he can do nothing, he claims that he can be more useful than her because he is a boy. Margaret leaves without a word. She calls the new horse Flora. In the evening she learns from Laird that Flora is to be shot the next day. Margaret confronts the father, who finds nothing in telling the news to the son and not to the daughter as well. The next morning the horse tears itself loose just before the shooting. Although Margaret could close the gate of the courtyard in time, she holds the gate open for the horse. Laird watches them do it, but says nothing. The men of the farm set out with Laird to catch Flora and return on horseback that evening. Laird, they say, did well at the capture. When Laird later confronts her, Margaret doesn't know why she let Flora go. At the dinner table, Laird reveals what she has done. The father reacts angrily. When Laird says that Margaret is crying, the father replies, "Never mind, she's only a girl" ("It's okay, she's only a girl."). Margaret leaves the dining table without a word. Laird finds her in front of the house a little later. He only betrayed her because she couldn't give him a reason for what she did. Margaret states that she knew the men would catch the horse - but they will never catch them themselves.

production

Boys and Girls is based on the short story Boys and Girls by Alice Munro from 1964. The end of the book was changed: If Margaret (unnamed in the book) at the end of the book thinks that her father could be right about his role assignment, she rejects at the end of the film against the role assignment as a woman, if only against her younger brother.

The film was made as a co-production by Atlantis Films and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation . The filming took place in Markham and on a fur farm in Alliston , Ontario. At the end the song Stand By Your Man can be heard. Boys and Girls first appeared in 1983.

Awards

Boys and Girls won the Academy Award for Best Short Film in 1984 .

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