Catherine Annau makes her directorial debut on Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the Seventies Generation, a documentary coproduced and financed by the National Film Board’s English and French Programs. She says she is anxious to see the reactions of the audience as the film makes its Toronto premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival – especially those who fall into the early to mid-30s range, the focus of the 77-minute, $400,000 doc.

The film explores the generation of Canadians who grew up during the Pierre Trudeau era. Eight subjects, representing the diversity of Canadian cultures and backgrounds, were selected for the film to reflect on Trudeau’s efforts to keep Canada whole. They also explore the issues of separatism, language barriers and why Quebec would want to separate.

Annau realized she wanted to make this film in 1995 when she was in Montreal watching televised coverage of the Quebec referendum.

‘A lot of the coverage was analyzing politically what the results of the referendum meant and what the future held and ended up being an abstract political science study,’ says Annau, a Torontonian who grew up admiring French-language culture and was devastated by the notion that Quebec would want to separate from Canada. ‘Nobody was talking emotionally about what it meant and what it meant to people like me who grew up during Trudeau’s time in office. I felt that somehow my identity was wrapped up in this question.’

January 1998: Just Watch Me is approved for development by the nfb Ontario Centre’s Gerry Flahive, who will act as producer on the project. Flahive says he was interested as soon as Annau told him what she wanted to do.

‘There is a lot of cynicism in Canada about politics and almost a loss of faith in the ability of politics to do anything, particularly around issues of language and national unity,’ says Flahive. ‘I thought that this was a fresh take on that subject, because it was politics through the personal.’

Early Spring 1998: The nfb issues a call to Canadians, asking them to share their thoughts and experiences for the film.

March 1998: While working days at the cbc, Annau starts weeding through the 400-plus calls and e-mails that have poured in. She hires a former Presbyterian minister to help with the search.

‘I figured if anybody could listen to people and get good stories out of them, it would be a former minister,’ Annau says.

The applicants are eventually weeded down to eight subjects for the film: Susanne Hilton, 34, gm for Waswanipi Cree Model Forest; Sylvain Marois, 34, a college professor from Victoria; Doug Garson, 32, a Crown attorney from Iqaluit; John Duffy, 35, a Toronto-based public affairs consultant; Jocelyne Perrier, 36, a history student in Montreal; Andre Gobeil, 32, a college academics advisor in Matane; Meg McDonald, 36, a French teacher from Victoria; and Evan Adams, 32, a Calgary-based actor/medical student.

‘I wanted people with good stories from as wide a section of the country as possible, since it is about a generation,’ explains Annau.

May 1998: NFB French Program producer Yves Bisaillon shows an interest in becoming a coproducer on Just Watch Me and making the doc an internal English/French coproduction.

Summer/early fall 1998: Annau tours much of Canada, visiting the subjects in the film and conducting pre-interviews.

Nov. 5, 1998: Just Watch Me is officially approved as an internal coproduction. It is also on this day that Annau meets the doc’s dop, Ronald Plant.

Nov. 26, 1998: Just Watch Me begins shooting in Toronto with an interview with Duffy.

Nov. 27, 1998: The Just Watch Me crew loses a day of filming when their plane to Iqaluit is delayed by three hours.

Nov. 28, 1998: The crew lands in Iqaluit, greeted by Garson and subzero temperatures. Over the course of the three-day shoot, the entire crew suffers some degree of frostbite.

‘I’ve never been so cold in my life,’ reports Annau. ‘We were shooting one day in minus-60 degrees with the windchill.’

She escapes the Great White North with frost-bitten ears, luckier than many in her crew.

Dec. 3, 1998: Annau and company fly to Victoria to interview Marois and McDonald. They stay for four days, shooting footage in and around Victoria.

Dec. 7, 1998: The crew flies to Calgary to interview Adams.

Dec. 14, 1998: After a few days in Toronto, the crew flies out to Quebec City to shoot scenery and venture on to Matane to interview Gobeil.

Around this time, Annau meets editor Craig Webster, who begins editing Just Watch Me three weeks later.

Jan. 7, 1999: After a Christmas break and some time to get Webster up to speed, Annau returns to Montreal, the city where she was first inspired to make Just Watch Me, in the middle of the so-called ‘blizzard of the century,’ which buries southern Ontario and Montreal in mountains of snow. The interviews conclude with Hilton and Perrier.

Jan. 13, 1999: After shooting footage in Ottawa and again in Toronto (still in a state of emergency), filming on Just Watch Me wraps.

May 1999: The film is edited and ready for presentation.

September 1999: After its world premiere at the Montreal World Film Festival, Just Watch Me will make its English Canada debut at tiff.