The NFB at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. Four films in official competition, the launch of a collection of shorts, an immersive virtual-reality experience, a retrospective, and four films selected for special screenings. NFB press conference on June 14.

From June 12 to 17, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) will have its sights set on the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, where it will be presenting a remarkable crop of Canadian works and international co-productions. They include four films in official competition, the world premiere of a collection of animated short films, a virtual-reality experience, a retrospective on Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, and four films selected for special screenings. The NFB will be holding a press conference in Annecy to mark the occasion, on June 14 at 10:30 a.m.

Deadline for applications is July 14. NFB puts out call for short documentary ideas by emerging creators with Doc Lab Saskatchewan. Three winning finalists—from Saskatoon, Regina and rural Saskatchewan—will work with NFB producers and mentors to make their own short docs this fall.

The National Film Board of Canada is reaching out to film and digital creators across Saskatchewan with an interest in short documentary storytelling with a call for submissions for Doc Lab Saskatchewan (#DocLabSK). Coming this fall, this new NFB emerging filmmaker program for short non-fiction was announced May 26 at the Yorkton Film Festival.

A partnership between the NFB and Pointe-à-Callière. Philippe Baylaucq’s immersive Un jour sur le pont Franchère re-creates the rhythms of a typical day in the early 19th century.

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and the Pointe-à-Callière Montréal Archaeology and History Complex are pleased to be launching a new immersive experience today called Un jour sur le pont Franchère (A Day on the Franchère Bridge). Conceived and directed by Philippe Baylaucq, with contributions from animation filmmaker Claude Cloutier, creative producer Jean-Marie Comeau, and NFB executive producer René Chénier, this hybrid work will be presented over the next decade in Pointe-à-Callière and is launching as part of the inauguration of the Fort de Ville-Marie – Pavillon Québecor, a heritage legacy celebrating Montreal’s 375th anniversary.

Attiya Khan and Lawrence Jackman’s powerful documentary A Better Man screens June 9–21 at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema. Intervention Productions/NFB feature chronicles a remarkable journey of healing for both a survivor of abuse and her former abuser.

After selling out multiple screenings and igniting crucial discussion about gender-based violence and restorative justice at this year’s Hot Docs festival, Attiya Khan and Lawrence Jackman’s feature documentary A Better Man (Intervention Productions/National Film Board of Canada) returns with a theatrical engagement at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, June 9–21. Khan and Jackman will attend three Q&As during the film’s opening weekend, on Friday, June 9, at 6:30 p.m., Saturday, June 10, at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday, June 11, at 8:45 p.m. (See complete schedule below or visit the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema website.)

Karim Ben Khelifa’s The Enemy has world premiere in Paris on May 18, followed by international tour with stops in Boston (MIT) and Montreal.

With The Enemy, internationally acclaimed photojournalist Karim Ben Khelifa steps up his quest to change people’s attitudes toward armed conflicts, violence, and the suffering they produce. This virtual-reality experience puts a human face on armed fighters, dropping audiences squarely into the combat zones of long-standing conflicts. The Enemy will have its world premiere at the Institut du monde arabe in Paris, from May 18 to June 4, followed by its North American premiere in Boston (October to December 2017) and its Canadian premiere in Montreal (winter 2018). Ben Khelifa will also go on a Canadian media tour, and the project’s augmented- and mixed-reality app will be accessible worldwide starting in summer 2017. The international co-production uses unprecedented, powerful encounters with 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.

An NFB/ARTE France co-production. Real-time doc experience Streamers, about the Twitch.tv phenomenon, now filming until the end of June. Over the next two months, the Streamers creative team will be recording live encounters between North American and European participants on Twitch, the popular social video platform for gamers that attracts 9.7 million daily users, producing a series of episodes for a documentary launching in fall 2017.

With Streamers, the National Film Board of Canada and ARTE France continue to explore new ways of telling stories using new technologies and platforms. This real-time documentary experience, filming every week until the end of June, will form the basis of a collaborative documentary launching in fall 2017. Through the prism of video game and streaming platform Twitch.tv, Streamers examines the desire to be part of something greater than oneself in today’s hyper-connected era. Eight to 10 episodes in English or French, featuring 32 Twitch users from North America and Europe as well as the communities that follow them, will be live-streamed on twitch.tv/streamersdoc. In keeping with the spirit of Twitch, the Streamers creative team will be taking an open, collaborative and real-time approach to exploring streaming—how it works as well as its limitations—and attempt to reveal the impact it can have on human relationships.

Roger Parent’s NFB doc From Sherbrooke to Brooks wins People’s Choice/Special Jury award at 2017 Festival Vues d’Afrique.

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.

NFB and UQAM announce names of participants in Jeunes Pousses interactive apprenticeship program as well as artists who will lead master classes, including Vincent Morisset (AATOAA), Simon Coutu (VICE), Raphaëlle Huysmans (URBANIA), and Maude Thibodeau (Dpt.)

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.