A Place to Stand

1967 0h 17m EN

👍

7.3

SOLID

★7.3TMDB · 12

Documentary

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

An Academy Award winning multi-image large-format film showcasing life in Ontario without narration or dialogue but accompanied by the classic song "A Place to Stand, a Place to Grow (Ontari-ari-ari-o!)" Produced for the Ontario Department of Economics and Development, it premiered at the Ontario Pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

WhatsApp X Facebook Telegram

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Christopher Chapman
Languages: No Language
Countries: Canada

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 7

RUNTIME

Did you know

Tight 17-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 7

ERA

Did you know

59 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 7

RUNTIME

Did you know

Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Christopher Chapman, shot by Laszlo George. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Christopher Chapman shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 7

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0062131 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 7

WILD

Did you know

Only 12 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Christopher Chapman directs. Laszlo George behind the camera. Christopher Chapman cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in Canada. Dialogue in No Language.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Tight 17-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.
259 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
3Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.
4Directed by Christopher Chapman, shot by Laszlo George. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Editor Christopher Chapman shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6IMDB entry: tt0062131 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
7Only 12 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

The technical file

Cinematography: Laszlo George
Editing: Christopher Chapman
Runtime: 17 min · 0h 17m
Status: Released
Original language: EN
IMDB: A Place to Stand (1967)

Awards

Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Christopher Chapman

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2025-11-30
★ 6/10
“#A place to stand, a place to grow, Ontariariario…#”. And oddly enough, fifty years on this is reminiscent of those interstitials we get at the Eurovision song contest when each host country exhibiting something beautiful or quirky about itself. This one condenses all that is impressive about this Canadian province into a quickly paced montage of moving photographs that depict just about everything from it’s human resources to it’s natural ones. Virgin and ancient forests and pristine lakes contrast with industrial scale logging and mining; the vast expanses of open grassland with the metropolitan Toronto and the Great Lakes that border with the United States. Aside from the geographic and natural virtues it extols, it also illustrates the Canadian people as a vibrant and creative bunch. Art, music, theatre all thrive as does sport of an international and more domestic variety and, of course, there are it’s roots which are celebrated using both the ceremonial and the individual. The style of presentation delivers postcards, ever updating and integrating and the storyboard for this must have been an impressively comprehensive work that showcases this as a land of plenty, of beauty and of opportunity. I have to say, though, that after about five minutes I’d rather got the message and I did get a bit weary of the constantly churning images and the increasingly twee rhymes that substitute for a narration. It’s not so much a film as an amalgam of quick-fire, quarter-screen, tourist board videos and I didn’t really love it.

Production companies