A Radiant Sphere

Growing up, the filmmaker, Sara Wylie, did not know her father or his family well. She recently discovered the poetry of Joe Wallace, her long lost great paternal uncle, a Canadian Communist poet and activist who was imprisoned as a political radical in World War II. Despite criticism he received from the Canadian literary community, he went on to become the most famous Canadian poet in Russia and China during the Cold War. Her journey into the archive reveals Wallace’s fascinating life and some surprising commonalities with the filmmaker.