When asked in a January 1984 interview with Cinema Canada what was lost in the transition from novel to screenplay, author Timothy Findley replied that "a lot was lost" primarily due to lack of budget. Director Robin Phillips and he had originally wanted to produce it as a mini-series.
In a January 1984 interview with Cinema Canada magazine, National Film Board executive producer Robert Verrall said: "There were some technical problems with the production sound, a lot of revoicing had to be done, 80% of it in fact had to be revoiced, but I think too much has been made of that as a problem and I defy even professionals to detect what was revoiced and what was not".
The portrait of Mrs. Ross (played by Martha Henry) seen at different times throughout the film is actually a photo from Robin Phillips's 1978 stage production of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya at the Stratford Festival, in which Henry played Elena.
Many of the actors in this film had been company members at the Stratford Festival during Robin Phillips's tenure as Artistic Director from 1975 to 1980.
After a 35 year absence, The Wars was unearthed and digitized by the Canada Media Fund's Encore+ YouTube channel in 2022. In 2022, Encore+ commissioned the restoration of The Wars, in partnership with Telefilm Canada's Ignite program. The film was remastered by the National Film Board of Canada and premiered on Encore+ in 2022. Theatrical screenings of The Wars have taken place at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2022, at the Ottawa International Film Festival (IFFO) in 2024 and at the Stratford Festival's Tom Patterson Theatre (October, 2024).
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
