From Sherbrooke to Brooks, Roger Parent’s debut feature-length documentary, has taken the People’s Choice/Special Jury Award in the Regard d’ici section of the 2017 Festival international de cinéma Vues d’Afrique in Montreal. Produced at the NFB’s Canadian Francophonie Studio by Dominic Desjardins in collaboration with UNIS TV, the film tells the story of the migration corridor between Quebec and Alberta travelled by French-speaking African refugees, who are trapped between the fragility of their dreams and the harsh constraints of reality.
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) have revealed the names of the eight apprentices who will be taking part in the Jeune Pousses interactive program, following a call for applications that went out in November 2016. This new nine-week apprenticeship (April 25 to June 21, 2017) will give students from a variety of UQAM programs the chance to work together at the NFB’s Interactive Studio, under the guidance of executive producer Hugues Sweeney, where they’ll create an audio project that will be launched when the apprenticeship is over. In addition to benefiting from a multidisciplinary experience in a real production environment, participants will attend master classes led by acclaimed artists and professionals from various fields.
On Wednesday, May 3, at 7 p.m. at the Cinémathèque québécoise, the public is invited to a special screening of Santiago Bertolino’s feature documentary Freelancer on the Front Lines / Un journaliste au front (NFB), followed by a discussion to mark World Press Freedom Day. The event was organized by the NFB in close collaboration with UQAM’s École des médias, and guest speakers will include the film’s director, Santiago Bertolino, and UQAM journalism professor Guillaume Lavallée, author of Drone de guerre: Visages du Pakistan dans la tourmente. The discussion will be hosted by André Lavoie, Le Devoir film critic and freelance journalist. After the screening, the film will continue its theatrical run in Montreal at the Cinémathèque québécoise and will also be playing at the Cinéma Le Clap in Quebec City starting May 3.
The lineup of National Film Board of Canada titles at Edmonton’s NorthwestFest (May 5–14, 2017) features local productions, stories and innovation, with an interactive VR experience as well as three powerful documentary films.
The National Film Board of Canada, in partnership with Place des Arts and the Society for the Celebrations of Montréal’s 375th Anniversary, is unveiling a remarkable project commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Montreal World’s Fair: a free, immersive experience called Expo 67 Live. This journey through the greatest moments of Expo 67 will take place every evening, from September 18 to 30, 2017, at the Place des Arts Esplanade. Created by multi-disciplinary artist K (Karine Lanoie-Brien), Expo 67 Live was produced at the NFB by executive producer René Chénier. Radio-Canada is also a partner in the event.
On April 22 in Edmonton, pioneering filmmaker and National Film Board of Canada producer Selwyn Jacob received the Outstanding Achievement Award, recognizing outstanding accomplishment, contribution to media art, and body of work, at FAVA FEST, the annual festival of the Film and Video Arts Society of Alberta.
Matthew Rankin’s animated film THE TESLA WORLD LIGHT, produced at the National Film Board of Canada by Julie Roy, will have its world premiere at the 56th International Critics’ Week, a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival organized by the French Syndicate of Film Critics. Rankin’s film will be one of 10 short films competing at the prestigious international event, which takes place May 18 to 26, 2017.
Launching April 21 at Tribeca Film Festival’s Storyscapes, Draw Me Close blurs the worlds of live performance, virtual reality and animation to create a vivid memoir about the relationship between a mother and her son in the wake of her terminal-cancer diagnosis. Weaving theatrical storytelling with cutting-edge technology, the project takes a deceptively simple and humanistic approach to the immersive medium: it allows the audience member to experience life as five-year-old Jordan, inside a live, animated world.
We stand on guard for thee. These are the words that ring through the air at the end of our national anthem.
It’s also the inspiration for What We Protect, the latest installment of the National Film Board of Canada’s 1 Nation. 4 Lenses, part of its special online programming for the 150th anniversary of Confederation (#Canada150).
Santiago Bertolino’s feature documentary Freelancer on the Front Lines (Un journaliste au front), produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), is coming to the Cinémathèque québécoise in Montreal and the Cinéma Le Clap in Quebec City as of May 3. The film tracks Canadian reporter Jesse Rosenfeld—a McGill University graduate—through Egypt, Israel, Palestine and Iraq, showing the complex world of a freelance journalist working in warzones. Given its gripping exploration of a new brand of frantic news-gathering that seeks to distance itself from the mass media, the documentary is a fitting tribute to World Press Freedom Day on May 3. Combining interviews with Rosenfeld, field reporting, articles, and archival documents culled from the media, Freelancer on the Front Lines presents a multi-faceted look at this emerging form of journalism for the digital age. In doing so, the film also provides an insider’s look at the importance of independent and critical news coverage in a media landscape that often tends toward convergence.
The National Film Board of Canada’s BC & Yukon and Digital studios are joining with REEL CANADA and local partners to make sure Vancouverites have plenty of chances to go to the movies and enjoy great BC and Canadian films when National Canadian Film Day (NCFD 150, #CanFilmDay) hits the country’s screens on April 19.
The National Film Board of Canada’s commitment to powerful and personal documentary storytelling will be showcased at the 2017 DOXA Documentary Film Festival (May 4–14) with premieres of three new feature documentaries, as well as a remastered classic doc that helped to change the way Indigenous issues are explored on screen.
Now available online at NFB.ca/hungry and viewable on all web browsers on mobile, tablet and computers, Newfoundland and Labrador filmmaker Rosemary House’s interactive video anthology Hungry Month of March shows how a flowering of haute cuisine in this easternmost Canadian province is steeped in the tradition of sustainability and self-sufficiency―and the memories of leaner times from the not-too-distant past. A Rock Island Productions/National Film Board of Canada co-production, with the participation of the Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation, Hungry Month of March features 14 short profiles of 10 suppliers who do the kind of work that almost everyone in the province’s remote outport communities used to do―when people were self-sufficient by necessity.
Five short films—Stone Makers by Jean-Marc E. Roy, Dialogue(s) by Philippe David Gagné, Help! by Noémie Payant-Hébert, A Good Harvest by Bogdan Stefan, and One Night by Serge Bordeleau—can now be viewed free of charge on NFB.ca, along with exclusive interviews with the filmmakers. The works are from the 5 Shorts Project, an NFB initiative that explores the short documentary genre by working with artist-run centres or production centres in different regions of Quebec. This second edition was created in partnership with La bande Sonimage, a Saguenay-based organization that supports cinema and video production in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region. The films were produced by Denis McCready and Colette Loumède (NFB) and Claudia Chabot (La bande Sonimage).
Steve Patry’s new feature-length documentary Waseskun, produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), will be presented at a Cinédit screening at the Cinéma Princesse in Rivière-du-Loup on Monday, March 27. The screening will take place at 7:30 p.m. with the director in attendance. Shot in an alternative detention centre run by Indigenous people for members of Indigenous communities, the film has received two Canadian Screen Award nominations: the Ted Rogers Best Feature Length Documentary award and Best Editing in a Feature Length Documentary (for editor Nathalie Lamoureux). Waseskun is produced by Nathalie Cloutier and Denis McCready with executive producer Colette Loumède.