Rosalie Abella strides down the hallways of the Supreme Court of Canada during her final days on the bench.Courtesy of Melbar Entertainment Group
Rosalie Abella can claim a remarkable number of firsts. She was the youngest judge in Canadian history when, at just 29 and pregnant, she was appointed to the Ontario Family Court in 1976. She was the first person to coin the phrase “employment equity” in the landmark 1984 Royal Commission on Equality in Employment. She was the country’s first female Jewish Supreme Court judge. And when she stepped down from that bench in 2021 (not to retire, but to become a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and a senior research scholar at Yale Law School), Abella left as the Supreme Court’s longest-serving member.
Now, Abella can claim another first: the first Canadian judge to ever be the subject of a full-length documentary. On May 1, the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto will host the world premiere of Without Precedent: The Supreme Life of Rosalie Abella. The doc, directed by the prolific Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich (Oscar Peterson: Black + White, The Talented Mr. Rosenberg), traces Abella’s long journey from the refugee daughter of Holocaust survivors to the top of the global justice community.
Ahead of the film’s premiere, Abella and Avrich spoke with The Globe and Mail about turning a legal story into a love story.
How did you two first connect, and how did Barry convince you to sit down to tell your life story?
Barry Avrich: As a documentary filmmaker, you’re constantly eyes wide open for ideas and extraordinary characters. Rosalie seemed like a Hollywood meets Broadway meets Aaron Sorkin meets Barbara Walters character. It’s all there. And for me, this film ends up being part of a trilogy of films on justice, starting with An Unlikely Obsession, which was about Churchill’s relationship with Jewish people, and Prosecuting Evil, about Ben Ferencz, the last surviving Nuremberg trial prosecutor.
Rosalie, would you characterize yourself as being in the Aaron Sorkin mold?
Rosalie Abella: Well, that would be wonderful!
Avrich: Well, I only thought about Sorkin because of the great legal stuff. But I was filming Prosecuting Evil with Ben, and I had to have the Canadian connection there, so I met with Rosalie to talk. The first time we sat down together, I was in her Supreme Court office, which is so explosive it looked like Baz Luhrmann might have art-directed it. I fell in love with her on film immediately. She fills the frame.
Abella: That is the fantasy part of me. But what drew me to the documentary, which was not something I agreed to easily or comfortably, was that it was the chance to be part of a story that had a historic arc. It started with the Second World War and I don’t know where it’s going to end, but it covers a lifetime of concerns about what justice means after the Holocaust.
Avrich: I’ll add that I very much wanted people to see this also as a love story about two extraordinary people who found each other, Rosalie and [her late husband, the historian Irving Abella]. It’s no mistake that I’ve put the two of them on that couch in a Harry Met Sally way.
How long was the filming process like, then? Because we see lots of Irving on film, and then learn later in the doc about his 2022 passing.
Avrich: I generally move quickly, but dealing with COVID and tracking Rosalie’s leaving the bench, it took about two years of filming, four or five long interviews. The interesting thing in the timing here, one that Rosalie probably won’t like, is that Canadian Supreme Court judges get to have a third act in life, unlike an American Supreme Court judge. And Rosalie’s, whether it’s teaching at Harvard or whatever else she is going to do, I wanted the film to reflect that third act, which meant taking the time to do it.
Rosalie: There was that, but probably the main reason I decided to do this film was that it could include Irving. He was my right hand, my left hand, he was everything to me. And he felt that this was an important story to tell. He never hesitated during his life to push me to pursue the life and career that I had. The idea of seeing this film next week in Toronto without him sitting beside me … it is very difficult. But I’m glad that we got a chance to show him as the loving and brilliant husband and father that he was. That’s the gift of the film for me.
How did your conversations evolve? The relationship between documentarian and subject can sometimes be fraught.
Avrich: I’m not a nervous person, but I was going into a room with someone just far more intelligent than I can ever be.
Abella: It was an exercise in mutual humility. I didn’t know anything about making a documentary or the creative process, and Barry was extremely respectful of the world that I was in. Neither of us were afraid to ask each other questions.
During the production process, did you discover something new about yourself, Rosalie?
Abella: Yes, I did. When I want to grow up, I want to be Barry Avrich.
Avrich: Oh, now. Tell him what you really learned …
Abella: I knew before making this that the most important thing to me in the world was family, but the questions that Barry asked me reinforced that. These were not the kinds of questions I get asked about in law schools. You don’t get the chance to think about what life feels like – you just live your life. So this was in many ways an exercise in subtle revelations. I ended up learning things that confirmed to me who I am.
Without Precedent: The Supreme Life of Rosalie Abella premieres May 1 at the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto, with subsequent screenings May 2 and May 5. It will open in select cities later this year.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Barry Hertz