March 7, 2025 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is featuring new animation and documentary films on nfb.ca throughout the month of March. nfb.ca now offers more than 7,000 films, available to stream free of charge, along with over 100 interactive works.

Five new documentaries will be premiering online, in addition to five new and recent animated works.

To help mark International Women’s Day, March 8, there’s a special focus on women’s cinema this month—with 8 of the 10 featured films directed by women.

Here’s what’s new on nfb.ca

March 7 – A Mother Apart by Laurie Townshend – documentary, 89 min

• Premiering online in celebration of International Women’s Day,A Mother Apart (Oya Media Group/NFB) accompanies Jamaican-American poet and LGBTQ+ activist Staceyann Chin as she re-imagines the essential art of mothering—having been abandoned by her own mother.
  • Premiering simultaneously on ca, CBC and CBC Gem

March 10 – Short Stories, Big Feelings – a bundle of five animated shorts plus a feature doc

• Torill Kove’s playful autobiographical homage Maybe Elephants (17 min) is the NFB’s fourth collaboration with the Montreal-based animator—a stellar run of animation excellence encompassing three Academy Award-nominated shorts, including her 2007 Oscar winner, The Danish Poet.
• A virtuoso of the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen, filmmaker Michèle Lemieux revisits the tragic fate of Queen Mariana of Austria through her 1652 portrait by Velázquez in The Painting (12 min).
• In Véronique Paquette’s LOCA (5 min), a woman finds a path to freedom through the energy of tango.
• When morning arrives, a shirt and a pair of pants transform into a human figure in Dahee Jeong’s Society of Clothes (Miyu Productions/Between the Pictures/NFB; 15 min).
• Winner of the DGC Award for Best Canadian Animation at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, Arash Akhgari’s In the Shallows (4 min) takes a deep dive into the shallow and fragmented world of mass media.
• The closing night film at 2024 Sommets du cinéma d’animation, Loïc Darses’ 75-minute Scratches of Life: The Art of Pierre Hébert explores the career of this outstanding Quebec animation filmmaker.

March 13 – Posthumans by Dominique Leclerc – documentary, 88 min

• Through conversations with cyborgs and transhumanists, Posthumans explores the ethical and political issues raised by technologies that seek to enhance human abilities.
  • Also presented free, the same day, at the NFB’s Alanis Obomsawin Theatre in Montreal as part of Hello Film!

March 30 – Ninan Auassat: We, the Children by Kim O’Bomsawin – documentary, 93 min

• A captivating documentary celebrating the power and vitality of Indigenous youth—winner of the Tides Award for Best Canadian Documentary at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
  • Premiering simultaneously on ICI TOU.TV

March 31 – Trécarré: Exploring the Saint Mary’s Bay Sound by Natalie Robichaud – documentary, 30 min

• Brimming with energy and lively tunes, Trécarrétakes us into the heart of an Acadian community where music has been a way of life for generations.
  • Premiering simultaneously on Radio-Canada Acadie

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French version here | version française ici.