The Margaret Mead Festival pays tribute to Allan King, one of the leading Canadian innovators of the cinéma vérité movement; his landmark features, Warrendale and A Married Couple, are classic testaments to the amazing flexibility of this form in the hands of a gifted director. Warrendale is a gripping, harrowing film that follows life inside a suburban residential center for troubled youth in Toronto. The center's highly controversial director, John Brown, pioneered the humane treatment of such children, advocating holding, rather than restraining, volatile children. Though his practice was contentious, it was responsible for transforming the treatment of emotionally disabled children. The film, commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, was not broadcast until thirty years after its completion due to what the CBC deemed coarse language and emotional violence. The film shared the British Academy's Best Foreign Film award with Antonioni's Blow-Up and the New York Critics' Award with Buñuel's Belle de Jour.-MMFVF