Michael Spencer – a pioneer in Canadian feature film, and the man who paved the way for today’s Telefilm Canada – has died.

After arriving in Canada in 1939, the English-born Spencer became stranded in Canada when World War II broke out. Two years later he joined the NFB, initially as a cameraman and, in 1945, as a producer.

Throughout his career with the NFB, which at the time was geared toward documentary-based filmmaking, Spencer fought to establish a homegrown film industry that operated independently of Hollywood’s.

In 1966, the NFB asked Spencer, now one of its top planning executives, to establish a public funding system for financing Canadian films. Spencer did this, and when the government accepted the proposals he put forth, he was named as the first executive director of Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC), which would later become Telefilm Canada.

Spencer held the exec director post at CFDC for a decade from 1968 to 1978, presiding over the production of early classics in Canada’s cinematic canon such as Michel Brault’s Les ordres and Ted Kotcheff’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.

Spencer chronicled his time at the NFB, CFDC and beyond in his book, written with co-author Suzan Ayscough, Hollywood North: Creating the Canadian Motion Picture Industry.

“Michael Spencer was a visionary, tireless champion of Canadian cinema. As a newcomer to Canada, he embraced this country and the vital importance of bringing authentic, homegrown Canadian stories to the screen―in both of Canada’s official languages,” said Claude Joli-Coeur, government film commissioner and NFB chairperson, in a statement.