Speechwriters : performing politics in documentary

What role do speechwriters play in Canadian Federal politics? How do they affect the political process? In what ways do they influence how we imagine and articulate ideas? How much of the words spoken in parliament are those of the politician and how much are those of the speechwriter? Speechwriters is a short documentary film that explores the above questions with humour, criticism, and sincerity. This paper explores these topic by discussing notions of performativity in both the political arena and the documentary film tradition.