Dionne quintuplets

Back in 1934, Elzire Dionne delivered five identical girls. This documentary follows Cecile, Emilie, Marie, Yvonne and Annette through twenty one years of strange upbringing. When the girls were just infants, the premier of Ontario issued a court order removing them from their parent’s care. Cut off from the world and their family, over-publicised, viewed twice daily in a special viewing compound, they grew up as prize exhibits. Director Donald Brittain uses newsreel footage, home movie sequences and interviews to depict a historic event that became a tragic exploitation of a family.

How to watch

This work has not been digitised and is currently unavailable to view online. It may be possible for approved reseachers to view onsite at ACMI.

Learn more about accessing our collection

Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

director

Donald Brittain

co-producer

Paul Wright

Peter Katadotis

Donald Brittain

production company

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

National Film Board of Canada

Duration

01:27:00:00

Production places

Canada

Production dates

1978

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

016620

Language

English

Subject categories

Advertising, Film, Journalism, Mass Media & TV → Home movies and video

Advertising, Film, Journalism, Mass Media & TV → Mass media

Documentary

Documentary → Documentary films - Canada

Feature films

Feature films → Feature films - Canada

Food, Health, Lifestyle, Medicine, Psychology & Safety → Births, Multiple

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Holdings

VHS; Access Print (Section 1)

16mm film; Access Print (Section 1)

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/78126--dionne-quintuplets/ |title=Dionne quintuplets |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=5 June 2023 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}

Canada, 1978

Please note