New Barry Avrich documentary spotlights Justice Rosalie Abella’s fight for equity

TORONTO – With more than 60 documentaries under his belt and nearly as many high-profile interviews to his name, filmmaker Barry Avrich said chronicling the career of Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella was by far his most nerve-racking experience yet.

“I don’t have any training in law and here I am about to have a conversation with somebody who is so extraordinarily smart,” Avrich said in a video call.

“With Rosalie Abella, she’s in a league of her own in terms of law and injustice, which was a completely foreign experience for me.”

His latest documentary, “Without Precedent: The Supreme Life Of Rosalie Abella,” premiering at Hot Docs on Monday, is an Abella-narrated window into the retired justice’s life and profession.

It begins from her earliest days, born in 1946to two Holocaust survivors in a displaced person’s camp in Germany, to her status as the first female Jewish Supreme Court Judge in Canada.

The filmmaker said he first became fascinated withAbella when he interviewed her for his documentary “Prosecuting Evil” in 2018, which focused on Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor Ben Ferencz.

“She was so accessible and you knew you were in the company of greatness even as she opted to make you feel great instead,” said Avrich.

“You couldn’t genuinely become too nervous around her because she’d defuse the room by asking about your favourite film or the last Broadway musical that you saw, for instance.”

Avrich adds that it was such interactions that formed the basis for his documentary about Abella — an access-driven view of a woman principally interested in the impact of her legacy on three specific groups: Her family, students of law, and new arrivals in Canada with accomplishments in mind.

“This is someone who lost a brother in a displacement camp and was born in that same place to parents who were Holocaust survivors,” said Avrich.

“She didn’t inherit anything. She created a life for her family and paved the way toward understanding what equality means, certainly at a time when most people weren’t thinking about it.”

As the documentary conveys through narration, archival footage, and photography, her legacy was crystallized well before Prime Minister Paul Martin nominated her to the Supreme Court in 2004.

In 1974, Abella was appointed to the Ontario Family Court at the age of 29, making her the youngest and first Jewish woman to become a judge in Canada.

As the documentary portrays, Abella went on to play a leading role as a legal warrior in the name of equality.

The year 1984 marked a pivotal period when she developed the idea of “employment equity” through a report that would address workplace inequality.

Her work inspired the federal Employment Equity Act, passed in 1986, which is meant to address the disadvantages experienced by women, visible minorities, Indigenous Peoples, and persons with disabilities. It requires employers to improve the situation for those groups and accommodate differences when needed.

She also extended these efforts in 1998 in a landmark ruling to provide survivor benefits to same-sex partners.

Avrich said that Abella’saccomplishments informed a few of his own personal misconceptions about Abella heading in, which were later dispelled the further he interacted with her.

“When you sit with Rosalie, you realize that there was no plan. She was chosen throughout her career time and again because she was the right person,” he said.

“When you see a Supreme Court Judge, you immediately imagine the robes, formality, and an unapproachable nature, but you quickly realize that she’s a Broadway fan, piano player, mother, and loving wife.”

In candid interviews with Abella and her husband Irving, who died in July of last year, the documentary dedicates a considerable section of run time to the love and support both partners provided each other since meeting as University of Toronto students.

“It became essential for me to have people see the film as not just a Rosalie Abella story, but a love story,” said Avrich, who used a photograph of Irving, a historian,holding a strobe light in the direction of his wife as the poster of the film.

“So often marriages with two extraordinarily brilliant and accomplished people don’t work, but they found a path to support each other, raise two kids, and appreciate when one has to be in the shadow, in the spotlight, and vice versa.

“I generally don’t show rough cuts to people, but I showed a rough cut of the film to Rosalie Abella in a theatre alone with a box of tissues and she was extraordinarily emotional and speechless by the end.”

When asked whether he’s had time to reflect on the privilege of having access to high-profile figures throughout his career, Avrich says he hasn’t, partly due to the fear that it’ll all come to an end.

Last year, the filmmaker’s brief Canadian Screen Award acceptance speech for his documentary “Oscar Peterson: Black + White” was met with criticism when he suggested that it didn’t matter who told Black stories, as long as they were told.

He’s since walked back his comments by clarifying that it in fact mattered.

When asked about his current views in light of this most recent opportunity and more, he said he views the future of documentary storytelling in Canada as “collaborative.”

“I think we’re all still learning the best path forward in making creative content in this country and my mission is to be as collaborative as possible and to engage as many people that want to be in this industry as possible.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 27, 2023.

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