Kay Armatage

Kay Armatage (born 1943) is a Canadian filmmaker, former programmer at the Toronto International Film Festival and Professor emerita at the University of Toronto's Cinema Studies Institute and Women & Gender Studies Institute. Though she attained a B.A. in English Literature from Queen's University, her name is generally linked with the University of Toronto.

Hailing from Saskatchewan, and showed an affinity for risk-taking films. This tendency plays out in her films; Armatage makes feminist pieces that realist and experimental in form, usually documentaries. As a feminist filmmaker, Armatage makes observational films that speak to women's issues Armatage is now on the Board of Directors of Women in View - an advocacy group for gender and diversity in Canadian media.

Kay Armatage is also a professor emerita at the Cinema Studies Institute and the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. She has written a large body of scholarly work, including well known pieces such as The Girl From God’s Country: Nell Shipman and Silent Cinema and co-edited Gendering the Nation: Canadian Women’s Cinema. Armatage's films have broached subjects such as "abortion in Speakbody (1979), objectification and economy in Striptease (1980) - from a grounding in theory" Her first two short films, Jill Johnston: October 1975 (co-dir. Lydia Wazana, 1977) and Gertrude and Alice in Passing (1978) are recognized as some of the first Canadian indie films to point to the political relevance of lesbian history and culture.

Armatage's films have been shown in art galleries and film festivals, such as the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Chicago, Toronto and Edinburgh film festivals. Her film Artist on Fire (1987) received a special citation for excellence in documentary filmmaking from the jury for the Toronto International Film Festival Award for Best Canadian Film at the 1987 Toronto International Film Festival.

Jill Johnston: October 1975 (co-dir. Lydia Wazana, 1977) Kay Armatage's first film was a short, which she directed alongside Lydia Wazana. The film is a documentary, which follows American author of Lesbian Nation and cultural critic Jill Johnston during one week of interviews in Toronto. The film's first showing at the University of Toronto's Innis College 'town hall' Year Title Contribution