Steve Patry’s new feature-length documentary Waseskun, produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), will screen at the OFF Festival cinéma du monde de Sherbrooke on Thursday, February 23. The screening will take place at 7 p.m. at Salle le Tremplin with the director in attendance. Shot in an alternative detention centre run by Indigenous people for members of Indigenous communities, the film has just 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.
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) wishes to congratulate animation filmmaker Michèle Cournoyer, who has received a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in recognition of her exceptional career. She and the other winners of this year’s award will each receive a medallion and a cash prize of $25,000.
Spring Break can seem to last forever—especially if the kids are bored. But no need to panic: the NFB is there to lend a helping hand with nfb.ca/springbreak, a playlist of 40 films specially chosen for fun family viewing, available for free streaming from February 27 to March 31. The playlist includes three films that will be exclusively available for this limited time in Canada and the US, free of charge. These three recent animated shorts are Me and My Moulton, by Torill Kove (Mikrofilm AS/NFB), nominated for an Oscar in 2015; Molly in the Springtime, by Pierre-Luc Granjon (Divertissement Subséquence/Piwi+/Folimage/NFB); and Big Mouth, by Andrea Dorfman (NFB).
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is back at the Festival international du film pour enfants de Montréal (FIFEM) with two animated shorts in competition: Patrick Péris’s Nadine, in its world premiere, and Diane Obomsawin’s J’aime les filles (I Like Girls), which returns to Montreal after winning two major awards since its world premiere at the Ottawa International Animation Festival and being nominated for a Canadian Screen Award. J’aime les filles will also be shown in a program of short films for kids aged 10 and up, followed by a discussion with the director. Both films offer humourous and whimsical explorations of first love. The 20th FIFEM will take place from March 4 to 12, 2017, during spring break. [Note that all films will screen in French.]
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is pleased to announce that on the eve of its Berlinale premiere the NFB doc Angry Inuk (NFB/Unikkaat Studios, in association with EyeSteelFilm), by Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, has won the 2017 Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s Social Justice Award for Documentary Film.
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is making groundbreaking, immersive virtual reality experiences more accessible than ever―starting with a VR reinvention of its multi-award-winning interactive doc Bear 71, now available free on Chrome as Bear 71 VR.
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) returns to the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois (RVCQ) with 12 films, nine of which will be in competition. They include the animated short Vaysha l’aveugle (Blind Vaysha) by Theodore Ushev, nominated for an Oscar this year; the world premiere of the documentary short La dernière clé (The Last Key) by Julien Capraro, produced as part of the Tremplin competition by the NFB in collaboration with ICI Radio-Canada Télé; and the Quebec premiere of Simplement Viola (Uniquely Viola) by Rodolphe Caron. The NFB is also participating in the RVCQ’s Rendez-vous Pro event with the interactive documentary Streamers by Guillaume Braun, due for release in the coming months. The 35th RVCQ will take place from February 22 to March 4, 2017.
Nine Canadian films will soon be broadcast on Cuban state television.
This is the first television licence between the National Film Board of Canada and a Cuban broadcaster. The nine NFB films—a selection of documentaries, animated shorts, and one drama—will be broadcast in Spanish-language versions. Negotiations were carried out in collaboration with Global Affairs Canada.
The South Korean-born filmmaker kimura byol-nathalie lemoine has been chosen for the 2017 Regard sur Montréal residency, enabling her to work on the writing, directing, post-production and distribution of her short film Projet Montréal #6261. Valued at $65,000, this residency is offered jointly by the Conseil des arts de Montréal, SODEC and NFB, in collaboration with Les Films de l’Autre.
Starting Wednesday, February 1, Anjali Nayar's feature-length documentary Gun Runners will be available in download-to-own (DTO) and video-on-demand (VOD) formats at NFB.ca and for streaming on Netflix. The film can also be purchased on DVD at NFB.ca or by phone at 1-800-267-7710. This first feature documentary from Montreal-born, Nairobi-based Anjali Nayar-one of cinema's rising young stars-was released in theatres across Canada in fall 2016. Gun Runners is produced by Kat Baulu and Annette Clarke of the NFB.
Radio-Canada and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) are pleased to announce that they have signed an agreement under which close to 30 outstanding NFB productions are now available in ICI Tou.tv’s new ONF section.
With the seal hunt criticized by anti-sealing groups, Quebec audiences will finally have a chance to hear the Inuit side of the debate in Alethea Arnaquq-Baril's Angry Inuk, a feature documentary co-produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and Unikkaat Studios in association with EyeSteelFilm. The film will be released in theatres February 10, at the Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Parc in Montreal and the Cinéma Le Clap in Quebec City, following numerous awards and much audience acclaim, including the Vimeo On Demand Audience Award at the Hot Docs festival and the People's Choice Award at the Canada's Top Ten Film Festival, organized by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) will have a strong presence at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival, with five films including the world-premiere screening of the animated short Hedgehog's Home (NFB/Bonobostudio), directed by Eva Cvijanović, which is also in competition. Two documentaries by Inuit women filmmakers are also featured as part of NATIVe 2017, the section devoted to Indigenous cinema: the feature Angry Inuk (NFB/Unikkaat Studios, in association with EyeSteelFilm) by Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, and the short Nowhere Land (NFB), by Bonnie Ammaaq. Two other documentaries-the feature-length Theater of Life (Triplex Films/NFB, in association with Phi Films) by Peter Svatek, with world-renowned chef Massimo Bottura, and the short HAND.LINE.COD. (NFB) by Justin Simms-will screen in the Culinary Cinema section. The 67th Berlinale takes place from February 9–19, 2017.
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) announced on January 23, 2017, that BOND/360 has acquired U.S. distribution rights to two new NFB feature documentaries: Alethea Arnaquq-Baril's Angry Inuk (NFB/Unikkaat Studios/EyeSteelFilm) and Anjali Nayar's Gun Runners.
Theodore Ushev's multi-award-winning Blind Vaysha (NFB) has been honoured with an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film.