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Filmmaking (20)
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AssemblyJenn Strom 2012 4 minThis experimental short animation is inspired by the NFB's Studio D (1975-1994), a production department aimed at creating filmmaking opportunities for women in Canada. Featuring a rhythmic soundscape and paint-on-glass animation, Assembly shows a woman’s hands cutting and editing a reel of film on a flatbed editing table as fragments of women walking in chains, protesting with placards, and speaking at podiums are inter-cut. We hear bursts of words and the percussive whir and click of the Steenbeck—until a “message” is finally revealed. The film is dedicated to the memory of Kathleen Shannon, a prominent editor and one-time Executive Producer of Studio D. -
Crazy, QuiltDonald McWilliams 1997 27 minThis film is part of a series of television programs including interviews with the directors of short animated films as well as the films themselves. This video includes 2 animated shorts: Quilt (by Gayle Thomas), an animated tribute to patchwork quilting and Scant Sanity (by John Weldon), an exploration into the nature of the mind and reality in which a person seeking job counseling receives psychiatric treatment instead, thereupon becoming convinced of the reality of his own internal world.
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Catherine O’Hara: All of Us ShineHart Snider 2021 4 minFrom SCTV and Home Alone to Best in ShowSchitt’s Creek, Catherine O’Hara collaborates with fellow performers throughout her legendary career to take comedy to new heights.
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Deepa Mehta, In ProfileNettie Wild 2012 6 minThis short film is a tribute to award-winning director and screenwriter Deepa Mehta. A true cultural hybrid, Mehta has been described as a “transnational” artist, able to tell universally meaningful stories from a uniquely Canadian point of view. In a career spanning over 30 years she has consistently broken new ground, tackling such controversial issues as intolerance, cultural discrimination and domestic violence. As an Indian who grew up speaking English first in a British Colonial School and then learning Hindi, she finds her passion and her stories in India, and the freedom to choose how to tell those stories in Canada.
Produced by the National Film Board of Canada in co-operation with the National Arts Centre and the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Foundation on the occasion of the 2012 Governor General's Performing Arts Awards. -
Daughter of the CraterNadine Beaudet & Danic Champoux 2019 1 h 15 minA woman with a deep love of the land, Yolande Simard Perrault sees her life as having been shaped by a planetary upheaval in Charlevoix, Quebec, millions of years ago. As enduring as the Canadian Shield, she’s a woman of strength and spirit, a child of the crater left by the meteor’s impact. This documentary portrays a determined woman who’s the reflection of a land created on an immense scale. She was the creative and life partner of filmmaker Pierre Perrault, who gave up everything to be by her side. The film charts the influence of her unquenchable dreams and her contribution to the building of a people’s collective memory. In a stream of images and words, Simard Perrault recounts the splendours of the landscape and the people who shaped it. Generous and boundless, she embarks on a quest for identity that nurtures and perpetuates the oeuvre of the man who breathed new life into Quebec cinema.
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Eleven Moving Moments with Evelyn LambartDonald McWilliams 2017 1 h 3 minThis feature-length documentary shines a much-deserved spotlight on Evelyn Lambart, who stood side-by-side with Norman McLaren for 21 years. Dubbed The First Lady of Canadian Animation, Lambart was an accomplished animator in her own right. This compilation, playfully contextualized by filmmaker Donald McWilliams, aims to prove just that.
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Geneviève Bujold: Art = LifeRobin McKenna 2018 4 minThis portrait of one of Canada’s most famous actresses was inspired by the filmmaking aesthetic of her friend, Michel Brault. Geneviève Bujold: Art = Life evokes Brault’s observational and improvisational approach in a stylized, black-and-white look at the actress that’s both intimate and introspective.
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Hand-Crafted Cinema Animation Workshop with Caroline LeafEric Roberts 1998 35 minThis short film brings together animation workshops led by award-winning independent animator Caroline Leaf. The film, which discusses and demonstrates Leaf’s artisan's approach to narrative filmmaking, explores 3 techniques she pioneered during her 20-year tenure at the NFB: sand, paint-on-glass and scratch animation.
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In PiecesPaule Baillargeon 2011 1 h 21 minPaule Baillargeon is 37 years old, 11 years old, 65 years old. . . In this film composed of fragments, she tells her story: the story of a woman, a filmmaker, a mother, a feminist, an artist. Of an actress, too, who delivers a powerful narrative that is both soothing and unsettling. These potent images, her images—filmed, painted, photographed, drawn, animated—merge into the portrait of a life that has been wild, rebellious and gentle. The tableaux are not so much autobiography as an authentic tale, as unpredictable and unique as any life.
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InterviewCaroline Leaf & Veronika Soul 1979 13 minA freewheeling cinematic experience, this film is the work of two filmmakers who relate their perceptions of each other through their respective animation techniques. Images and words are paired in startling associations. Each does a visual portrait of the other, based on characteristic gestures and impressions. A combination of techniques and materials produces a film of rich visual texture shaped by the hands and heads of two very different people.
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Kathleen Shannon: On Film, Feminism & Other DreamsGerry Rogers 1997 49 minWith quiet intelligence and wry humour, retired documentary filmmaker Kathleen Shannon takes us through the arc of her life and career. Beginning with childhood, moving through her formative years, to her overwhelming desire to give women a chance to tell their stories, this film paints a vibrant portrait of one woman who blazed the way. It's a story of struggle, persistence, and success… and of course, of the NFB's Studio D.
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The Lost Garden: The Life and Cinema of Alice Guy-BlachéMarquise Lepage 1995 52 minThis feature documentary is a portrait of Alice Guy-Blaché, one of cinema's most fearless pioneers. A filmmaker before the word even existed, Guy-Blaché made her first film at the end of the last century, when cinema was still brand-new. After directing, producing and writing more than 700 films, she slipped into oblivion. This film rescues her brave and shining memory.
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Margaret Perry—FilmmakerLes Krizsan 1987 24 minMargaret Perry, now in her eighties, is the unsung heroine of the Nova Scotia film industry. For over a quarter of a century, she shot, directed, wrote and edited all the tourist films for the province. Through her camera, we view changes in the landscape, in lifestyles, and in film technology.
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Making Movie History: Anne WheelerJoanne Robertson 2012 6 minDirector and editor Anne Wheeler reflects on her early documentaries with the NFB, the birth of the North West and Prairie Studios and working with Donald Sutherland.
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Making Movie History: Carol GeddesJoanne Robertson 2012 5 minDirector and writer Carol Geddes reflects on telling stories from an aboriginal perspective as a filmmaker in the NFBs North West studio.
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RadicalDeanne Foley 2019 6 minDeanne Foley profiles fellow Newfoundlander Mary Walsh, the Great Warrior Queen of Canadian comedy, musing on time wasted
Deanne Foley profiles fellow Newfoundlander Mary Walsh, the Great Warrior Queen of Canadian comedy, musing on time wasted as an object of desire and time well spent as the fearless agent of her own destiny. A joyous call to action.
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SHAMELESS: The ART of DisabilityBonnie Sherr Klein 2006 1 h 11 minArt and activism are the starting point for a funny and intimate portrait of five surprising individuals with diverse disabilities. Packed with humour and raw energy, this film follows the gang of five from B.C. to Nova Scotia as they create and present their own images of their disabilities.
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SHAMELESS: The ART of DisabilityBonnie Sherr Klein 2006 48 minArt, activism and disability are the starting point for what unfolds as a funny and intimate portrait of 5 individuals. Director Bonnie Sherr Klein (Not a Love Story and Speaking Our Peace) has been a pioneer of women’s cinema. SHAMELESS: The ART of Disability marks Klein's return to a career interrupted by a catastrophic stroke in 1987. She turns the lens on the world of disability culture and the transformative power of art.
Joining Klein are a group of artists with diverse (dis)abilities. Humorist David Roche is taking his one-man show, The Church of 80% Sincerity, to New York’s off-Broadway. Poet Catherine Frazee is navigating a jam-packed schedule of teaching and speaking engagements. Dancer and choreographer Geoff McMurchy is organizing KickstART, an international festival of disability art. Sculptor and writer Persimmon Blackbridge is creating mixed media portraits from “meaningful junk”.
Klein gathers these artists for a pyjama party where they take a subversive look at Hollywood stereotypes of people with disabilities: The Monster, The Saint, The Psycho, the Poor Little Crippled Girl, etc. The artists decide to turn the tables, making a pact to meet a year later at the KicksART Festival with the intent of creating their own images of disability.
The film tracks this motley gang of five while they create and then present their self-representations. As we get to know each of these remarkable people driven by a passion for art and transformation, the everyday complexities and unexpected richness of life with a disability are exposed. -
Tantoo CardinalDarlene Naponse 2020 4 minA moving portrait of actress Tantoo Cardinal, travelling through time and across the many roles she’s played, capturing her strength and her impact—and how she shattered the glass ceiling and survived.
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When All the Leaves Are GoneAlanis Obomsawin 2010 17 min
As the only First Nations student in an all-white 1940s school, eight-year old Wato is keenly aware of the hostility towards her. She deeply misses the loving environment of the reserve she once called home, and her isolation is sharpened by her father’s serious illness. When Wato’s teacher reads from a history book describing First Nations peoples as ignorant and cruel, it aggravates her classmates’ prejudice. Shy and vulnerable Wato becomes the target of their bullying and abuse. Alone in her suffering, she finds solace and strength in the protective world of her magical dreams.
Inspired by personal experiences of writer and director Alanis Obomsawin, When All the Leaves are Gone combines autobiography, fiction and fable to create a deeply moving story about the power of dreams.
