The animated short Skin for Skin, directed by Calgary filmmakers Carol Beecher and Kevin D. A. Kurytnik and produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), will have its world premiere at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival, where it will be screening in competition. A stunning neo-Gothic tale of exploitation and spiritual reckoning in the early days of the North American fur trade, the film offers a new, mythical take on this period of Canadian history. Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre’s Oscar (MJSTP Films/NFB, in collaboration with Télé-Québec), an animated short doc about the great Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, has also been selected to screen at Fantasia—one of the most important genre film festivals in North America, set to show films from around the world between July 13 and August 2, 2017.
Oscar, Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre’s animated short documentary about the life of acclaimed jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, will be streaming free of charge on NFB.ca starting today. The film will also be screened this afternoon when the Oscar Peterson Award is presented at this year’s Montreal Jazz Festival, with the jazz great’s daughter, Céline Peterson, in attendance. As part of the festival’s programming lineup, Oscar will also be shown at Montreal’s Cinéma du Parc theatre, prior to the documentary features Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary, by John Scheinfeld, and Bill Frisell, A Portrait, by Emma Franz. The French version of Oscar will be broadcast on the Télé-Québec television network and streamed in Télé-Québec’s “Zone vidéo.” The film was produced by Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre and Jocelyne Perrier for MJSTP Films and Marc Bertrand for the NFB, with the collaboration of Télé-Québec. Julie Roy is the executive producer.
Starting June 29, NFB.ca will feature seven new short films by the National Film Board of Canada celebrating the achievements of Canadian performing arts legends, as this year’s laureates are honoured at the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards in Ottawa.
The National Film Board of Canada has announced a three-year plan outlining a series of commitments that respond to the work and recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) and Indigenous creators’ longstanding concerns about systemic inequities in the existing Canadian production landscape.
Hedgehog’s Home, directed by Montreal-based Eva Cvijanović and co-produced by the National Film Board of Canada and Bonobostudio, received the Young Audiences Award at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival’s special awards ceremony on June 16. This year marks the fourth time the special awards were presented at the city’s town hall with Jean-Luc Rigaut, mayor of Annecy, in attendance. A second awards ceremony will be held on June 17, the festival’s closing day.
Starting June 14, a new National Film Board of Canada series of interactive essays, #Legacies150, offers a dazzling array of 13 first-person perspectives on the themes of legacy and inheritance, as Canada’s public producer adds to its online programming for the 150th anniversary of Confederation (#Canada150).
Halifax director Teresa MacInnes’s National Film Board of Canada short documentary Mabel has won the Rockie Award for best social and investigative program, announced June 13 at the Banff World Media Festival.
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) will be making the most of its time at this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival with the launch of Comic Strip Chronicles, a quartet of whimsical shorts co-produced with Canal+ and Sacrebleu Productions that celebrates the close affinity between comic books and animated films.
On Friday, June 9, the new National Film Board of Canada/Cult Leader interactive experience The Space We Hold premieres online at nfb.ca/thespacewehold/ as well as at the Sheffield Doc/Fest’s Alternate Realities exhibition.
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.
The National Film Board of Canada kicks off the animation festival season in style with five works at the 27th World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb, June 5 to 10, 2017.
Firefly Books and the National Film Board of Canada would like to announce their joint partnership. Firefly Books will be the official book publisher of the NFB.
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.
Jari Osborne’s 33-minute National Film Board of Canada of Canada documentary Picture This will have its world premiere at TIFF Bell Lightbox on Tuesday, May 30 at 5 p.m. at Toronto’s Inside Out Festival, which is also featuring the local debut of Diane Obomsawin’s acclaimed animated short I Like Girls.
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.