CBC Archives

You must sign in to leave a comment on this clip.

Remembering master archivist Bill O'Farrell

Broadcast Date: Aug. 16, 1995

When it comes to preserving film for future generations, Bill O'Farrell was Canada's archiving godfather. Longtime head of film preservation at the National Archives of Canada, O'Farrell worked his way up from film vault technician to become an internationally renowned expert in audiovisual conservation. Bill O'Farrell died in Ottawa on Aug. 30, 2008 at age 54. In this clip, edited together from two episodes of CBC Radio's Maritime Noon, O'Farrell uses a call-in show about preservation to play a joke on the hosts and guests. Calling as "Llib Llerrafo", the master archivist hints that he may have found the holy grail of Canadian film.

Remembering master archivist Bill O'Farrell

• This clip is edited together from two shows. On Aug. 16, 1985, Maritime Noon used the occasion of a Halifax audiovisual workshop to host a call-in show about preserving old tapes and film. Bill O'Farrell pulls a fast one on the guests, archivists Jim Wheeler and Jim Lindner, but the show ran out of time before the hoax could be revealed. The following day O'Farrell joined host George Jordan to explain the joke, and to share some of his knowledge.

• William O'Farrell had a storied career in the Canadian film industry. Like his father, William O'Farrell Sr., he began his career at Crawley Films, one of North America's biggest film studios outside Hollywood. The elder O'Farrell helped win Canada's first Academy Award for the 1975 film The Man Who Skied Down Everest, and donated the company's film cans to the National Archives of Canada when the studio went bankrupt.

• William O'Farrell Jr. moved to the Public Archives of Canada in 1975, and soon managed all the archive's film preservation. Among his projects were the restoration of silent films excavated from Dawson City, a set of 106 Canadian Army Newsreels and the oldest surviving copy of the 1919 Canadian adventure film Back to God's Country.

• O'Farrell served on the executive board of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, and was an advisor on many international film archives.

• Jim Lindner, one of the guests on the call-in show featured at the start of this clip, remembers the prank fondly. "Mr. Wheeler and myself did not get the prank, and when we got back to the conference we found out that everyone had listened - everyone was hysterical. Bill always was funny and had a great sense of humor - and did not take anything too seriously."

• The archivist's "holy grail" that Bill O'Farrell discusses in the second part of this clip is Evangeline, a 1913 Canadian film based on the poem Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It's a love story set in the 1755 expulsion of Acadians from Nova Scotia. According to a 2005 government study of Canada's feature film industry, Evangeline, which was shot in Nova Scotia, was the first Canadian feature film produced. The original film was lost, with only publicity stills remaining.

Remembering master archivist Bill O'Farrell

Medium: Radio

Program: Maritime Noon

Broadcast Date: Aug. 16, 1995

Guest(s): Jim Lindner, Bill O'Farrell, Jim Wheeler

Resource: George Jordan

Duration: 5:52

This clip contains combined excerpts of programs that aired on Aug. 16-17, 1985.

Photo:

Photo courtesy of Rick Prelinger, blackoystercatcher.blogspot.com

Last updated:
Sept. 12, 2008