The Paper People

The Paper People is a Canadian dramatic television film, directed by David Gardner and released in 1967.[1] The first television film ever produced entirely in-house by CBC Television without an outside coproducer,[2] the film centres on Jamie Taylor (Marc Strange), an artist working on a project in which he builds papier-mâché models of people and then films the models being set on fire, and Janet Webb (Marigold Charlesworth), a journalist profiling Jamie in a documentary.[1] The cast also included Lucy Warner, Kate Reid, Brett Somers and Robin Ward.

The film was shot in the summer of 1967, in Toronto and Oakville, Ontario.[3]

The film aired on December 13, 1967 as an episode of the anthology series Festival.[1] It received mixed reviews, with Sheila Keiran of The Globe and Mail panning it as pretentious, arty and boring,[1] while Lorne Parton of The Province called it one of the better films to be released in any format, television or theatrical, that year.[4] The broadcast sparked some controversy, however, with some commentators stating that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation should not be investing in films that would clearly only appeal to a limited audience.[5]