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New on nfb.ca in June… Acclaimed NFB titles to mark Pride Month and National Indigenous History Month. Redesigned Ocean School launches on World Oceans Day, with a video-mapping projection experience in Montreal’s Old Port celebrating Ocean Week Canada.

PRESS RELEASE
30/05/2022

May 30, 2022 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

This June, nfb.ca will be streaming more films than ever free of charge, as the National Film Board of Canada’s online screening room features celebrated new titles to help mark Pride Month, World Oceans Day and National Indigenous History Month.

Available indefinitely at nfb.ca, these new works join more than 5,500 already online, including 100 interactive projects.

Starting June 6 – new for Pride Month

Someone Like Me, directed by Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams (80 min)
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/someone-like-me

  • Winner of three awards including the Rogers Audience Award for Canadian Feature Documentary at Hot Docs, Someone Like Me follows the parallel journeys of Drake, a gay asylum seeker from Uganda, and a group of strangers from Vancouver’s queer community who are tasked with supporting his resettlement in Canada. Together, they embark on a year-long quest for personal freedom, revealing how in a world where one must constantly fight for the right to exist, survival itself becomes a victory.
  • Horlor and Adams are a filmmaking team based in Vancouver.
  • There’s also more great content on the NFB’s LGBTQ2+

Starting June 8 – new for World Oceans Day

Ocean School

  • The NFB is launching a new, redesigned Ocean School, with lots of additional features. Ocean School is a free, innovative ocean education resource for use in the classroom and at home—part of the NFB’s commitment to developing new learning resources that raise awareness about climate change and the future of our planet.
  • As part of Ocean Week Canada, Ocean School is also collaborating with MAPP_MTL to present “The Ocean Station” at the La Fontaine Park in Montreal on June 4, 7 and 8. People of all ages are invited to create their own marine creature that will be projected into a giant virtual ocean after sunset, in an amazing collective video-mapping projection experience.
  • Ocean School’s mission is to help everyone understand our influence on the ocean and the ocean’s influence on us, and to empower people with knowledge, tools and inspiration so that we can take action.

Starting June 13  – new for National Indigenous History Month

Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy, directed by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (125 min)
Co-produced by Seen Through Woman Productions and the NFB
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/kimmapiiyipitssini-the-meaning-of-empathy

  • A member of the Kainai First Nation and the Sámi in Norway, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers creates an intimate portrait of her community and the impacts of a substance-use and overdose epidemic. Contextualized in the historical and lived trauma of settler colonialism, Kímmapiiyipitssini draws a connecting line between the impacts of colonialism on Blackfoot land and people and the ongoing substance-use crisis.
  • Winner of nine awards including the Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award and Rogers Audience Award for Canadian Feature Documentary at Hot Docs, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy premieres free online at nfb.ca after an acclaimed national tour.
  • Kímmapiiyipitssini (GEE-maa-bee-bit-sin) is a Blackfoot word meaning “giving kindness to each other.”

Starting June 21  – new for National Indigenous Peoples Day

Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again, directed by Courtney Montour (34 min)

Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/mary-two-axe-earley-i-am-indian-again

  • Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again shares the powerful story of Mary Two-Axe Earley, who fought for more than two decades to challenge sex discrimination against First Nations women embedded in Canada’s Indian Act, and became a key figure in Canada’s women’s rights movement.
  • Winner of three awards including Best Documentary Short at imagineNATIVE, the film uses never-before-seen archival footage and audio recordings, as Mohawk filmmaker Courtney Montour engages in a deeply personal conversation with the late Kahnawà:ke woman who galvanized a movement to restore Indian status to thousands of First Nations women and children.

There are also more than 500 titles on the Indigenous Cinema channel, including a growing number of works in Indigenous languages.

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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.