City of Gold

City of Gold (1957) is a classic example of the superb work by the National Film Board of Canada's (NFB) acclaimed Unit B Directors Wolf Koenig and Colin Low and editor and producer Tom Daly.

City of Gold (1957) is a classic example of the superb work by the National Film Board of Canada's (NFB) acclaimed Unit B Directors Wolf Koenig and Colin Low and editor and producer Tom Daly. The film is an engaging 22-minute look at Dawson City during the Klondike gold rush, with the brilliant use of original black and white still photographs and an insightful commentary by author and historian Pierre Berton, who narrates boyhood memories of his early life in Dawson. City of Gold, essentially a collage of photographs compares Dawson City in the 1890s to Dawson City in the 1950s.

In what is one of the most popular and honoured films produced by the NFB under Daly, innovative panning techniques used by Low and Koenig create the impression that the photographs are actually moving. City of Gold won two Canadian Film Awards in 1958 and was nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA (the British Oscars), in addition to winning more than a dozen other international and festival prizes, including the Palme d'or at Cannes.