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Seven NFB shorts celebrating GGPAA laureates launching June 14 at 9 p.m. EDT on NFB platforms, CBC Gem and ICI TOU.TV. NFB’s GGPAA film collection reaches 125 films.

PRESS RELEASE
14/06/2025

Images provided by the NFB.

June 14, 2025 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

Seven National Film Board of Canada (NFB) short films celebrating Canadian performing arts excellence will premiere online Saturday, June 14, at 9 p.m. EDT, immediately following the 2025 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards (GGPAA) celebration at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre.

Canadians will be able to watch these cinematic tributes to this year’s laureates on NFB platforms as well as CBC Gem (in English) and ICI TOU.TV (in French).

Each year, the NFB works to find the right combination of director, concept and laureate—producing portraits of distinguished Canadians that also stand on their own as innovative short works of cinema. This year’s films are directed by accomplished Canadian filmmakers Tara Johns and Monique Leblanc.

The NFB’s GGPAA film collection now totals 125 shorts, created over a 17-year partnership with the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards Foundation that began back in 2008.

Laureates and their films

  • Directed by Tara Johns and produced by Robert Vroom
    • Legendary Toronto-born music producer and Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award laureate Bob Ezrin struggles to write his memoir in That Damn Book. Daunted by the pressure of doing justice to a life filled with rock legends, career milestones and family memories, he turns to Alice Cooper—and his own children—for guidance. It turns out the true story he has to tell isn’t just about star-studded accomplishments, but the family and love that gives meaning to it all. 
    • In I’m Just Me, a struggling actor—sporting the literal head of a wolf—seeks guidance from a five-star-rated, fox-headed psychiatrist. As their therapy session spirals into a comically surreal commentary on the anxieties of artistic ambition and self-worth, the mask slips to reveal none other than Graham Greene, the southwestern Ontario-bornlegendary actor and Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award.
    • Time Flies features revered Montreal-based contemporary composer and Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award laureate Denis Gougeon balancing the roles of pilot and air traffic controller. Evoking both the flights of imagination and precision required to create his music, Gougeon recounts a musical journey of self-discovery that’s led to his compositions being performed all over the world, while he remains grounded in Quebec.
    • In The ’Hood in Me, veteran Montreal comic actor and Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award laureate Patrick Huard (as Pops) guides young Nathan on a whimsical journey of life lessons in a backstreet curiosities shop. Through his own stories of resilience, creativity and responsibility, Pops tests Nathan’s qualifications as apprentice. At first, it does not go well.
    • A Sonic Rematriation is a hybrid music video and spoken-word film honouring National Arts Centre Award recipient Jeremy Dutcher, Wolastoqiyik member of the Tobique First Nation in northwest New Brunswick, and his reclamation of ancestral songs and the mother tongue of the Wolastoqiyik. Featuring intimate Wolastoqey language performances, archival voices and dreamlike visuals, the film traces Dutcher’s liberation from smoke-bound silence to fiery, unbound song.
  • Directed by Monique Leblanc and produced by Christine Aubé
    • The founder of Red Sky Performance, Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award laureate Sandra Laronde has revolutionized Indigenous storytelling. Embodied Stories captures her artistic journey through dance productions and her AI film Land Dances Us, as well as stunning imagery of the Temagami region in Ontario—her childhood home and creative wellspring.
    • The recipient of this year’s Ramon John Hnatyshyn Award for Voluntarism in the Performing Arts, April Hubbard is a Halifax-based performance artist, arts administrator and Mad Disability advocate. Leading by Example follows her trajectory from excluded performer to revolutionary force in Nova Scotia’s arts scene as she transforms artistic spaces. Hubbard shatters perceptions through captivating performances while creating accessible opportunities for all artists—embodying a creative liberation that transcends physical limitations and a vision that knows no boundaries.

About the directors

Tara Johns

Tara Johns is an Alberta-born writer-director who’s built her cinematic career in Montreal. Tara’s debut short film, Killing Time, was awarded Best Canadian Short at the 2001 Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival and named one of the Top 10 Best Québécois Shorts of the Decade at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois. Tara was most recently tapped by MarVista Entertainment to direct Our Christmas Mural for Hallmark and is currently in development on her new original feature project, Good Bones, with Palomar Films. 

Monique Leblanc

Director, actress, screenwriter, writer and producer Monique LeBlanc is a prominent figure in Eastern Canada’s film industry, working in both documentary and fiction. Acclaimed recent credits include her 2020 adaptation of Louise Dupré’s book of poetry, Higher Than Flames Will Go (2020), and The Geographies of DAR (2023), her fourth feature documentary and fifth collaboration with the NFB.

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French version here | Version française ici.

Media Relations

  • About the NFB

    For more than 80 years, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has produced, distributed and preserved those stories, which now form a vast audiovisual collection—an important part of our cultural heritage that represents all Canadians.

    To tell these stories, the NFB works with filmmakers of all ages and backgrounds, from across the country. It harnesses their creativity to produce relevant and groundbreaking content for curious, engaged and diverse audiences. The NFB also collaborates with industry experts to foster innovation in every aspect of storytelling, from formats to distribution models.

    Every year, another 50 or so powerful new animated and documentary films are added to the NFB’s extensive collection of more than 14,000 titles, half of which are available to watch for free on nfb.ca.

    Through its mandate, its stature and its productions, the NFB contributes to Canada’s cultural identity and is helping to build the Canada of tomorrow.