March 31, 2026 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

The National Film Board of Canada will be at the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma (RVQC) 2026 with six films—both documentaries and animation—that have made their mark on the national and international festival circuit over the past year. The works include Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski’s La jeune fille qui pleurait des perles (The Girl Who Cried Pearls), which won the award for Best Animated Short at this year’s Oscars; Martine Frossard’s Hypersensible (Hypersensitive), which screened in the Official Competition at Cannes; and Alex Boya’s Bread Will Walk, which was shown at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

Rounding out the lineup are three other films that also did well on the festival circuit. Two are by first-time NFB collaborators Sophie Bédard Marcotte (J’ai perdu de vue le paysage / I Lost Sight of the Landscape) and Hayat Najm (Le bruit des choses qui brûlent / The Sound of Things Ablaze), with the third (Plus rien n’est égal par ailleurs / All Things Are No Longer Equal) by Martin Bureau, who has previously worked with the NFB on two other projects.

All screenings will take place with filmmakers in attendance. The 44th Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma is from April 22 to 30, 2026, in Montreal. 

The NFB at RVQC 2026

Hypersensible (Hypersensitive) by Martine Frossard (animation, 6 min 44 s)
Press kit
Screening: Saturday, April 25, at 2:30 p.m. (Histoires de fantôme program), Cinéma Cineplex Odeon Quartier Latin 12. The filmmaker will be in attendance.

• Hypersensitive recounts the turbulent, surrealistic journey of a young woman struggling to rebuild her self, in defiance of social norms that tell us to repress our emotions. The film is a heartfelt plea for us all to take greater heed of our emotions, even the most painful ones. It was the only Canadian short in Official Competition at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in 2025, and has been selected by 30 festivals in Canada, the U.S., Asia and Europe. 

J’ai perdu de vue le paysage (I Lost Sight of the Landscape) by Sophie Bédard Marcotte (documentary, 85 min)
Press kit
Screening: Sunday, April 26, at 4:30 p.m., Cinéma du musée. The filmmaker will be in attendance.

• Intrigued by a theatre artist’s creative process, a director makes 16 different versions of the same film—one in which art and life are continually intertwined. In the process, the uncontrollable nature of life is revealed, with honesty and a good dose of humour. In 2025, the film had its world premiere at the prestigious Visions du Réel festival in Nyon, Switzerland, and received a special mention at FIDADOC in Agadir, Morocco. It was also selected to screen at a number of festivals in Canada and around the world. It will be playing in Quebec theatres starting April 3. 

La jeune fille qui pleurait des perles (The Girl Who Cried Pearls) by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (animation, 17 min)
Press kit
Screening: Thursday, April 23, at 5 p.m. (Plus ça change program), Cinémathèque québécoise, Hydro-Québec theatre. With filmmaker Chris Lavis and executive producer Christine Noël in attendance.

• A celebration of the magic of stop-motion animation, The Girl Who Cried Pearlsis a meticulously crafted fable about a girl overwhelmed by sorrow, the boy who loves her, and how greed leads good hearts to wicked deeds. The film features a star-studded creative team, including a film score by Patrick Watson, James Hyndman’s voice in French and Brigitte Henry as artistic director. The film won the Oscar for Best Animated Short film at this year’s Academy Awards and has received 17 awards and honours at some 50 festivals in Canada and abroad. 

Le bruit des choses qui brûlent (The Sound of Things Ablaze) by Hayat Najm (animation, 6 min 35 s)
Press kit
Screening: Sunday, April 26, at 7 :15 pm. (En pièces détachées program), Cinéma Cineplex Odeon Quartier Latin, theatre 10. The filmmaker will be in attendance.

• Told through animated charcoal drawings, this is a story of resilience about a woman still haunted by the horrors of war. For this first animated film by Lebanon-born, Montreal-based visual artist Hayat Najm, award-winning pianist Jean-Michel Blais composed and performed the original score. Selected to screen at festivals in Canada and abroad, the film received the award for Best Animation at the New York City Short Film Festival.

Bread Will Walk (Le pain se lève) by Alex Boya (animation, 11 min 18 s)
Press kit
Screening: Sunday, April 26, at 7:15 pm. (En pièces détachées program), Cinéma Cineplex Odeon Quartier Latin, theatre 10. The filmmaker will be in attendance.

• A devoted sister flees with her brother, a benevolent, bread-turned zombie. A mob pursues, mouths agape. Streets twist into mazes, reason dissolves, hunger reigns. Can love defy appetite? In this social satire and timely, absurd dark comedy, every single character is brilliantly voiced by actor Jay Baruchel. This three-time award winner has screened at some 15 festivals worldwide, including at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. It has also been nominated for a Canadian Screen Award.

Plus rien n’est égal par ailleurs (All Things Are No Longer Equal) by Martin Bureau (documentary, 66 min)
Press kit
Screening: Tuesday, April 28, at 7:45 p.m., NFB’s Alanis Obomsawin Theatre (Îlot Balmoral).
The filmmaker will be in attendance.

• Blending documentary and visual art, this radical film dives deep into Western society, steeped in crisis and captive to the excesses of capitalism but still not lacking in collective solutions. The critical commentary of philosopher Alain Deneault calls for reinvented forms of collective and territorial solidarity. The film had its world premiere at the International Festival of Films on Art, screening to packed houses in Montreal and Quebec City. 

The NFB will also host other screenings and industry activities at Îlot Balmoral (Alanis Obomsawin Theatre and NFB Space) during the RVQC.

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Version française ici.