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Consumerism (17)
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All the Right StuffConnie Littlefield 1997 22 min"I always have a good time. Lots of teenagers hang out at the mall. It's like walking around in a big TV set." Brendan, 13.
All the Right Stuff is about kids, malls, media and money. This video puts the role of youth in today's corporate economy into perspective.
Join Brendan on a tour through the local mall. With two hundred dollars of birthday money in his pocket, he's ready to do some serious spending on music, clothes, and video games.
Teenagers represent a huge and lucrative market for advertisers. They may work in low-paying service sector jobs, but as Brendan says "I pay no rent. My income is one hundred percent disposable."
Intercut with Brendan's shopping trip are interviews with shopkeepers, young people who talk about the pressure on them to consume and to sport all the right logos, and members of the bands Thrush Hermit and Hip Club Groove on how the music and clothing industries target young people.
With poor job prospects and little access to the political process, teens come to see themselves primarily as consumers. It's a self-image marketers are only too happy to encourage and exploit. -
AccordionMichèle Cournoyer 2004 5 minThis animated short explores the connections between sex, love and technology. A woman connects to the Internet. She not only embraces technology but surrenders to it entirely as she sends her entire body and soul to her electronic lover. In this world of Pandora's boxes, sexual desire and dehumanizing machine intertwine till they're finally and brutally disconnected.
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The Bear's ChristmasHugh Foulds 1974 8 minThis short cartoon tells the story of a bear who didn’t believe in Christmas. His main problem with this most magical of holidays? Too many Santas. How would he ever recognize the real one? Alone, out of a job, he goes to drown his sorrows, but back in his lonely room, for all his doubts, the Christmas spirit makes a surprise call.
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The Devil at Your HeelsRobert Fortier 1981 1 h 42 minThis feature-length documentary introduces viewers to Ken Carter, a Montreal-born stunt driver who made a living by risking his life. The film shines a light on the intense preparation that led to Carter’s first attempt to jump a car across a mile-wide stretch of the St. Lawrence River – a 5-year period during which the dare-devil raised a million dollars, erected a 10-storey take-off ramp and built a rocket-powered car.
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EarthwareRick Raxlen & Donald Winkler 1975 10 minThis short, impressionistic film takes us to Nigeria, Japan, Mexico and India, where craftsmen work clay to produce ritual vessels and everyday objects. Film without words.
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End of MessageBenjamin Mugica 2014 1 minVoicemails get lost and found in space in this thoughtful commentary on the fractured act of communication and the spaces between people trying to express themselves.
Produced as part of the 10th edition of the NFB’s Hothouse apprenticeship. -
From Naughty to NiceJudd Palmer 2014 25 minThis short film, featuring the work of the internationally-renowned Old Trout Puppet Workshop, is a playful cautionary tale about the consequences of selfishness and greed. The film’s greedy boy-king, Santa Claus, has everything he could ever want, including a castle brimming with toys, but the path of the greedy has only one end: to wind up alone, without a single friend. Santa only wants more and more—until he discovers the gift of giving.
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Fire - EnergyMichel Barbeau 2000 21 minThis short documentary is about Canada's energy resources: wind, water, sun, oil, uranium and natural gas. The film is part of the TRANSIT series on Canada's geography, which travels from the humid rainforests of British Columbia, to the desert-like badlands of Alberta; from the frosty Arctic where no trees grow, to the fertile farmland of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Region.
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OkimahPaul M. Rickard 1998 50 minThis documentary focuses on the goose hunt, a ritual of central importance to the Cree people of the James Bay coastal areas. Not only a source of food, the hunt is also used to transfer Cree culture, skills, and ethics to future generations. Filmmaker Paul M. Rickard invites us along with his own family on a fall goose hunt, so that we can share in the experience.
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Pelts: Politics of the Fur TradeNigel Markham 1989 56 minThe fur trade is Canada's oldest industry, but today some people challenge the morality of killing animals for their fur. This film examines the public relations war raging between the industry and its opponents and takes an objective look at the ethical, environmental and economic issues raised by the debate. The struggle to win over public opinion has been joined by Indigenous peoples in Canada who fear that their way of life will be jeopardized if the fur industry is destroyed. The cycle of the industry is followed from the trapper's bush camp and the fur ranch to the final sale of a coat in the furrier's salon. Throughout the film, the conflicting opinions of fur industry representatives, animal rights activists and Indigenous people challenge the viewer to consider all aspects of this complex debate.
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让-马克·瓦雷 (Jean-Marc Vallée)Annie St-Pierre 2015 4 minA Chinese video club merchant is dedicated to selling VHS and DVD copies of films directed by a single filmmaker: Jean-Marc Vallée. For this connoisseur of cinema, Vallée is the director the entire world needs to discover. A tender and humorous portrait of a fellow filmmaker by Annie St-Pierre.
Produced by the NFB in co-operation with the National Arts Centre and the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Foundation on the occasion of the 2015 Governor General's Performing Arts Awards. -
Square RootsPatrick Doyon 2006 2 minIn this short animated film a robot rambles about frenetically, receiving countless electronic messages through his antenna every second. Despite his fatigue and stress, he never slows down. The only thing that might bring his frantic journey to an end is a traffic accident.
Produced as part of the third edition of the NFB’s Hothouse apprenticeship. -
Sexy Inc. Our Children Under Influence (Youth Version)Sophie Bissonnette 2007 26 minAre children being pushed prematurely into adulthood? Sophie Bissonnette’s documentary Sexy inc. Our Children Under Influence – Youth Version analyzes the hypersexualization of our environment and its noxious effects on young people. Psychologists, teachers and school nurses criticize the unhealthy culture surrounding our children, where marketing and advertising are targeting younger and younger audiences and bombarding them with sexual and sexist images. These stereotypes treat girls of all ages as sexual objects, and exercise a damaging the effect on their identities. Because they see degrading images of sexuality on the Internet, some children confuse sexual relations with pornography. Sexy inc. suggests various ways of countering hypersexualization and the eroticization of childhood and invites us to rally against this worrying phenomenon.
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Sexy Inc. Our Children Under InfluenceSophie Bissonnette 2007 35 minSophie Bissonnette's documentary analyzes the hypersexualization of our environment and its noxious effects on young people. Psychologists, teachers and school nurses criticize the unhealthy culture surrounding our children, where marketing and advertising are targeting younger and younger audiences and bombarding them with sexual and sexist images. Sexy Inc. suggests various ways of countering hypersexualization and the eroticization of childhood and invites us to rally against this worrying phenomenon.
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TV SaleErnie Schmidt 1975 10 minThis animated short is an entertaining and incisive satire on some of the material that is disgorged via the "boob tube." The opening pitch of the television salesman establishes the tone of this pithy film: a solid-state model guarantees high-quality entertainment, and programs are always designed around products, not spectators.
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This Is a Recorded MessageJean-Thomas Bédard 1973 10 minThis experimental animated short takes a critical look at consumerism in a material world. Thousands of cut-out ads are presented in increasingly fragmented, rapid succession. The film's disorienting and hectic pace seeks to interrogate the extent to which seductive advertising is a shockingly strong force in shaping our desires, needs, and lives in contemporary capitalism.
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Very Nice, Very NiceArthur Lipsett 1961 6 minArthur Lipsett's first film is an avant-garde blend of photography and sound. It looks behind the business-as-usual face we put on life and shows anxieties we want to forget. It is made of dozens of pictures that seem familiar, with fragments of speech heard in passing and, between times, a voice saying, "Very nice, very nice." It was critically acclaimed and plays frequently in festivals and film schools around the world.
