The National Film Board of Canada and the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) are launching Déroutes, un voyage sonore au cœur de Montréal, a free app for iOS that features French-speaking new Montrealers discussing their first experiences riding the Montreal Metro. These first-person accounts of Montreal are sometimes funny, often touching, and always eminently human. The app was created by eight students from UQAM through Jeunes Pousses, a nine-week interactive apprenticeship program that had them working with the NFB’s Interactive Studio to develop an interactive narrative project in which audio was central to the creative process. These students were the first group to complete the program. The call for applications for the 2018 edition is also being launched today.
Fifteen National Film Board of Canada works will be shown at the 20th-anniversary edition of the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) (November 9-19), including three new NFB feature docs making their Quebec premiere after acclaimed film festival tours: Alanis Obomsawin’s Our People Will Be Healed, Charles Officer’s Unarmed Verses, and Tasha Hubbard’s Birth of a Family.
The National Film Board of Canada is honouring the memory and contributions to Quebec cinema of Jean Roy, a cameraman, director of photography, producer, and director who passed away this week at the age of 88. He founded the NFB’s French-language independent filmmaker assistance program, ACIC, in 1973.
The National Film Board of Canada and the Sommets du cinéma d’animation are joining forces to present a series of Artists’ Talks at the Cinémathèque québécoise, beginning Friday, October 27, with Éléonore Goldberg and her film Mon yiddish papi (My Yiddish Papi). In the months to come, animation filmmakers Matthew Rankin, Dominic Etienne Simard, Alex Boya and Torill Kove will take turns giving the public behind-the-scenes glimpses into their latest productions. Audiences will have a rare opportunity to explore these artists’ creative processes and talk to them about their approach, inspiration and techniques.
The National Film Board of Canada returns to the Festival du cinéma international en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (FCIAT) this year with four films, including two world premieres: the animated short Un printemps (Winds of Spring) (NFB), by Keyu Chen, and the feature documentary Labrecque, une caméra pour la mémoire (ACPAV/NFB), by Michel La Veaux. The former tells the tale of a young girl who, driven by the irrepressible need for self-fulfillment, dreams of leaving the family nest, while the latter captures the great director and cinematographer Jean-Claude Labrecque’s passionate, humanistic perspective on the films, culture, and history of Quebec. Two other animated shorts round out the NFB slate for the festival: Diane Obomsawin’s J’aime les filles (I Like Girls) (NFB) and La dent (The Tooth) (Canal+/Sacrebleu Productions/NFB), directed by Guy Delisle. The FCIAT takes place in Rouyn-Noranda and runs October 28 to November 2, 2017.
The National Film Board of Canada’s Ontario Studio in Toronto is now in production on Throat, a visionary feature documentary on the powerful and uncompromising Inuk artist/activist Tanya Tagaq, co-created by Chelsea McMullan (My Prairie Home) and Tagaq, and produced by Lea Marin and executive produced by Anita Lee for the NFB.
Starting Saturday, October 21, Winnipeg audiences will have the chance to take in Marie Clements’ musical documentary The Road Forward on the big screen, as the Cinematheque presents screenings of the National Film Board of Canada feature until October 29.
24 Davids by Céline Baril, produced at the National Film Board of Canada by Colette Loumède, will have its world premiere as the opening film of the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM), taking place November 9 to 19, 2017. Written and directed as part of the NFB French Program’s filmmaker-in-residence initiative, the feature documentary takes us across three continents on a quest driven by a simple yet original idea: to shine a spotlight on the inimitable Davids of this world. The 24 Davids in the film are of varying ages and professions, ranging from cosmologist to recycler; together, they construct a playful “ecosystem” of ideas that touches on every sphere of knowledge, in a refreshingly freewheeling cinematic format. The documentary will start its theatrical run at the Cinémathèque québécoise on February 2, 2018.
Labrecque, une caméra pour la mémoire, a feature documentary by Michel La Veaux, will have its world premiere at the 36th Festival du cinéma international en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (FCIAT) in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, with the director—a friend and regular patron of the festival—in attendance. Chronicling a genuine encounter between renowned Quebec filmmaker/cinematographer Jean-Claude Labrecque and La Veaux, an acclaimed Quebec cinematographer (Le démantèlement) and director (Hôtel La Louisiane), the film captures Labrecque’s passionate, humanistic perspective on the films, culture and history of Quebec. Labrecque, une caméra pour la mémoire is produced by Nicole Hubert with executive producer Bernadette Payeur for the Association coopérative de productions audiovisuelles (ACPAV) and co-produced by the NFB, with Nathalie Cloutier as producer and Colette Loumède as executive producer. The film screens on Sunday, October 29, at 2:20 p.m. at the Théâtre du Cuivre and is in competition for two awards at the festival, which runs from October 28 to November 2, 2017. Labrecque begins a theatrical run at the Cinémathèque québécoise on January 12, 2018.
A dark tale of greed and spiritual reckoning by Kevin D.A. Kurytnik and Carol Beecher, the National Film Board of Canada animated short film Skin for Skin has picked up three awards at film festivals in Alberta, winning Best Overall Short (Live Action or Animated) and Audience Favourite, Alberta Short at the Calgary International Film Festival, followed by the Grand Jury Award for Best Short Film (Animation) at the Edmonton International Film Festival.
Starting today, The Enemy, the virtual-reality (VR) experience by internationally renowned photojournalist Karim Ben Khelifa, is available worldwide in French and English as an augmented-reality (AR) app on the App Store and Google Play, where it can be downloaded for free. Developed by the Montreal-based digital creation studio studio Dpt. and the National Film Board of Canada, it has a running time of approximately 50 minutes and uses ARKit for iPhone and iPad (and soon, ARCore features for Android), offering a totally new level of augmented reality that allows interaction with the real world like never before. The Enemy comprises two components: the AR app and the multiuser VR museum installation, which will have its Canadian premiere in winter 2018. This international documentary co-production uses unprecedented, powerful encounters with real combatants from opposing camps to show that both sides are, in fact, more alike than different. The Enemy is co-produced by Camera Lucida Productions, France Télévisions, the NFB, Dpt. and Emissive.
A world leader in film and digital production by women and committed to doing more, the National Film Board of Canada will be represented at the 2017 St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival (Oct. 18–22) with two new feature-length documentaries and two acclaimed animated shorts—showcasing the richness and diversity of NFB films by women.
Santiago Bertolino’s National Film Board of Canada feature documentary on Canadian freelance journalist Jesse Rosenfeld, Freelancer on the Front Lines, screens Thursday, October 12, 2017, at 7:30 p.m. at the Famous Players Canada Square Cinemas as part of Toronto’s Reelworld Film Festival, with the wide-roving Canadian journalist in attendance for a Q&A.
A world leader in digital archiving as well as pioneering documentary works that address vital issues, the National Film Board of Canada is in co-production with Loaded Pictures on The Forbidden Reel, an upcoming feature doc by Ariel Nasr that will explore the heroic efforts of Afghanis to build and preserve their country’s national cinema—while the NFB works directly with the Afghan Film Archives to help strengthen their efforts in film digitization, preservation, and distribution.
Canadians have a reputation for being a polite people. But that doesn’t mean that we back down from a fight. In What We Fight For—the final chapter in the National Film Board of Canada’s 1 Nation. 4 Lenses special programming for the 150th anniversary of Confederation (#Canada150)—the NFB is showcasing the Canadian spirit of protest from past to present.