Category — NFB

Five NFB productions in competition at the 2008 OIAF.

The selection includes “Le noeud cravate”, winner of two prizes at the Montreal World Film Festival.

“Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action” and “Indigenous Plant Diva” are premiering at VIFF.

The film opens in theatres on September 12.

From September 16 to December 11, 36 films will screen free of charge.

An aboriginal film about the Musqueam people of greater Vancouver and their linguistic and cultural legacy has picked up an award at Out On Screen, the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. Find out more about Writing the Land here or read the full press release here.  

 The Necktie of Jean-François Lévesque, produced by the NFB (Julie Roy) won last night at the World Film Festival of Montréal     

•1st Prize Short Films (Jury)      

•Award for Best Canadian Short Film  

The short animated film Hungu, directed by Nicolas Breault, is back from the 2008 Palm Springs International ShortFest & Short Film Market held August 21 to 27 in California with two awards:

First Place for the Best Animated Short Jury Award – with a $2,000 prize
Honorable mention award for the Future Filmmaker Award

Hungu takes its title from the name of an African musical instrument and combines 2D with sand animation in an elegant tale of death and resurrection. Inspired by the grace and raw beauty of African rock paintings, Brault applies his narrative gifts to a world where humans and nature are subtly linked. Hungu was produced by the NFB by Michèle Bélanger and Julie Roy.

Two students from Concordia University win the prize for their fiction This Little Piggy.

The film opens in theatres on September 12.

With four world premieres, eight Atlantic premieres, the twelve NFB gems in competition sparkle and shine!

Watch a clip from Passage, a film about one of Canada’s oldest mysteries

Last week the Canadian government announced they were resuming the search for the lost ships of Lord Franklin, who disappeared along with his crew in a doomed 1845 expedition to find the Northwest Passage.

Environment minister John Baird told the CBC, "This announcement and the search for these two vessels … has the allure of an Indiana Jones mystery."

Since the disappearance the ships have become the focus of great controversy and found a place in Canadian mythology.

Last year, the story of the two ships and their continuing legacy was the subject of the critically-acclaimed documentary, Passage, by John Walker.

Watch a clip from the film – which is a unique blend of documentary and dramatization – about the controversial legacy of Lord Franklin and his unique place in Canadian history.

Hip-hop show with Aboriginal singers and Quebec City acts.

Four docs, two animated films, and one short

Two animated films in official competition, one short and four documentaries comprise the NFB selection for the 26th WFF in Montreal, August 31 to September 1.

In official competition
Animator, Theodore Ushev, once again addresses the ideological and artistic excesses of the 20th century in Drux Flux; Jean-François Lévesque’s The Necktie, tells the story of a model employee in a dead-end job.

Focus on World Cinema
In her second visit to the WFF, filmmaker JoDee Samuelson is presenting her new film, Uncle Bob’s Hospital Visit which is a sweet little tale about the importance of emotional support, hope and love in the healing process.

Documentaries of the World

In Folle de Dieu, Jean-Daniel Lafond gives an astonishing portrait of Marie de l’Incarnation who founded the Ursuline convent in Quebec City in 1639. The passion that connects her to God also makes her abandon her son and her country. 

The conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal is the focus of the documentary J’me voyais déjà by Bachir Bensaddek, in which 13 aspiring actors reveal their fears, uncertainties and expectations.  

Sweetest Embrace: Return to Afghanistan is the moving return of two young men to their native land, 16 years after being sent to Tadjikistan because of the Soviet occupation of their country.

Griefwalker is an extraordinary portrait of Stephen Jenkinson and his work with the dying. The film is framed by director Tim Wilson’s wrestling with his denial of his own death as he nearly succumbs to a sudden illness, and his having to face the death of someone very close to him.

The NFB will also make its 22nd presentation of the Norman McLaren Prize to the winner of the 39th Canadian Student Film Festival, part of the WFF. The prize is $2,500 worth of NFB technical services for the winner’s next film as part of FAP-Québec (Filmmaker Assistance Program).

 
For more about the NFB at FFM, go to www.nfb.ca/ffm08
Read the press release
 

Seven NFB World Premieres at Montreal WFF 2008.

Seven NFB films selected at TIFF 2008.

WITNESS Video Advocacy Institute 2008

CITIZENShift will be hosting a screening soirée during the WITNESS Video Advocacy Institute 2008 in Montreal, Wednesday, July 30th at 7:30pm

CITIZENShift collaborators will be presenting their work and sharing their experiences with human rights defenders from around the world.

Please join us for an evening of screenings and discussion on media creation at:

Concordia University’s  CJ building auditorium – 7141 Sherbrook street west (corner West Broadway)

Find out more about VAI.

NFB Distribution team adds new talent.

$10,000CAD/£5,000 co-production competition
for innovative content creators

National Film Board of Canada
and Sheffield Doc/Fest Announce
2008 "CROSS-MEDIA CHALLENGE"

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and the Sheffield International Documentary Festival are issuing a call for proposals for the second CROSS-MEDIA CHALLENGE.

The CROSS-MEDIA CHALLENGE is a co-production competition for innovative, interactive, socially engaged content with applications for mobile and broadband. It will award one producer a $10,000CAD/£5,000 co-production development deal with the NFB.

Deadline for entries is October 10, 2008. Three semi-finalists will be invited to present their projects at a panel session during the Sheffield Doc/Fest. The winner will be announced at the DigiDocs 360 program at the Sheffield Doc/Fest.  Semi-finalists must finance their own travel to the festival.

The Sheffield International Documentary Festival takes place November 5 – 9, 2008, in Sheffield, England.

ABOUT THE CHALLENGE

A global leader in developing content for new platforms, the NFB wants to ensure the digital future has room for artistic innovation and social relevance. The CROSS-MEDIA CHALLENGE is one way of reaching out to potential new production partners.

The CROSS-MEDIA CHALLENGE offers media makers an opportunity to develop projects that:

• inspire an exchange of storytelling practices among diverse communities;
• use media creatively to foster an international dialogue on issues with local roots;
• unleash the creative talents of new and alternative voices.

The NFB is interested in projects that use the versatility, mobility and borderless nature of new platforms to enable communities to talk to each other. Projects must be documentary based. The theme for the 2008 challenge is "environment."

Eligible projects must be cross-platform and multi-platform involving the best features of each medium to ensure maximum audience participation. Projects should take full advantage of the range of new platforms, with particular emphasis on interactive, mobile and online. Projects must demonstrate direct contact and interaction with communities as part of the development plan.

The winner of the 2007 CROSS-MEDIA CHALLENGE was My Dangerous Loverboy,  an interactive Web and mobile site that will raise awareness of global sex trafficking and create a virtual community for at-risk young girls. My Dangerous Loverboy is a co-production of Vita Nova Films, Quba New Media, Screen Siren Productions and the NFB.

RESTRICTIONS

Employees of the National Film Board of Canada and the Sheffield International Documentary Festival and members of their immediate family and persons residing with them are not eligible for the CROSS-MEDIA CHALLENGE.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Submitted proposals should be a maximum of 2 pages and provide a succinct overview of your project, a development plan and development budget summary along with any supporting audiovisual material. Proposals must be received by October 10, 2008.

Proposals (including your full name and address) should be e-mailed to:

Programming and Reporting Coordinator
crossmediachallenge@nfb.ca

Supporting audiovisual material may be mailed, with cover letter specifying the name of the project, to:

Programming and Reporting Coordinator
P-15
National Film Board of Canada
3155 Côte de Liesse Road
Montreal, Quebec H4N 2N4

The winning project will be announced at the DigiDocs 360 program at Sheffield Doc/Fest.

For more information on DigiDocs 360, visit
www.sheffdocfest.com/view/digidocs.

TIPS

For a better idea of how creativity and social issues come together in innovative cross-platform programming at the NFB, you may want to check out these NFB projects:

CITIZENSHIFT
http://citizen.nfb.ca
Web platform for alternative media and social change

WAPIKONI MOBILE (in French)
www.wapikoni.ca
A program for emerging Quebec Aboriginal filmmakers
Conceived by Manon Barbeau/Les productions des beaux jours, in collaboration with the NFB

FILMMAKER-IN-RESIDENCE
www.nfb.ca/filmmakerinresidence
A pioneering multimedia community engagement project, nominated in 2007 for the Grierson Innovation Award.

The manifesto for this project outlines a general approach that can be adapted to other kinds of socially engaged media projects:

1. The original project idea and goals come from the community partner.
2. The filmmaker’s role is to experiment and adapt documentary forms to the original idea. Break stereotypes. Push the boundaries of what documentary means.
3. Use documentary and media to "participate" rather than just to observe and to record. Filmmaker-in-Residence is not an A/V or a PR department.
4. Work closely with the community partner, but respect each other’s expertise and independence.
5. 5. Use whatever medium suits – video, photography, World Wide Web, cellphones, iPods or just pen and paper. It can all be documentary.
6. Work through the ethics, privacy and consent process with your partners before you begin, and adapt your project accordingly. Sometimes it means changing your whole approach – or even dropping it. That’s the cost of being ethical.
7. The social goals – and the process itself – are paramount. Ask yourself every day: why are you doing this project?
8. Always tell a good story.
9. Track the process and results and spend time sharing what you’ve learned with multiple communities: professionals, academics, filmmakers, media, general public, advocates, critics and students.
10. Support the community partner in distribution and outreach. Spend 10% of the time making the project and 90% of the time getting it out into the world.
11. Just "showing it" is not necessarily a goal in itself. Work with the partners to harness the project’s momentum to effect real participation and real positive change.

GENERAL CONDITIONS

Any submitted proposal will not be returned to a participant.

All information submitted to the CROSS-MEDIA CHALLENGE from a participant will be used only for the purposes of conducting this Challenge unless otherwise indicated by participant.

Semi-finalists must be available to participate in a panel session at the Sheffield Doc/Fest (November 5 – 9, 2008) and pay their expenses to attend the festival. The festival will provide semi-finalists with a free day pass, if necessary.

The NFB will not be responsible for the participant’s inability to get through on the Internet during the Challenge period.

Proposals are subject to verification and will be declared invalid if they are illegible.

The winner will receive a $10,000CAD/£5,000 co-production development offer from the NFB. The winner must accept the terms and conditions of the standard co-production development agreement for the offer to be valid. The award must be accepted as is and cannot be transferred, substituted, or exchanged in whole or in part for money.

By participating in this Challenge, the winner relieves the NFB of all liability for damages the winner may suffer following acceptance of the award.

The winner shall consent, if required, to the use, without compensation, of his or her name and/or image, in particular, photo and /or voice, for publicity purposes related to this Challenge.

The NFB is not liable for computer system, software or phone line malfunctions; the loss or absence of network server connections; or any defective, incomplete, jumbled or scrambled computer transmissions or transmission failure by any computer or network that might restrict or prevent participation in the Challenge. The NFB is not liable for any damage or loss caused, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, by the downloading of any software or form or by the transmission of any information in regard to the Challenge participation.

The NFB reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify, cancel or suspend the Challenge.

By submitting a proposal, participants agree to these rules.

Subject to all applicable laws and regulations, these rules govern all aspects of the Challenge and bind all participants.

Out on DVD since June 17, The Invisible Nation continues to be one of Archambault’s top ten bestsellers. The film is also carried by Renaud-Bray, HMV, Boîte noire, Superclub Vidéotron and many other video clubs.

After Forest Alert/L’erreur boréale, directors Desjardins and Monderie are back with a searing new documentary that aims to shake viewers out of their complacency. The Invisible Nation, a hard-hitting history lesson and an alarming present-day portrait of the Algonquin people, gives a voice to those who are too rarely heard.

Eagerly anticipated by the general public, the media and First Nations communities, The Invisible Nation was received with thunderous applause when it premiered at the 2007 Festival du cinéma international en Abitibi-Témiscamingue. It was then released in some 15 cinemas across Quebec and screened at over 25 film clubs. Distributed solely in digital format, the film has taken in over $115,000 to date. After its first week of theatrical release, it ranked as one of Quebec’s top 20 films in terms of box office performance.

The DVD release has been a similar success.

"A fascinating documentary exposing a truth we’d rather not know." – Marc-André Lussier, La Presse
"Shocking but essential." – Michel Defoy, Voir
"The images speak and the words punch [...] a very moving film." – Brigitte McCann, Le Journal de Montréal

The Invisible Nation is available on DVD at the NFB’s online store nfb.ca/boutique as well as at many other points of sale.

Six NFB films on the roster

It’s that time of year again! Here’s a list of NFB films that will be playing this fall at TIFF:

Feature length Films:

The Memories of Angels (La Mémoire des anges) by Luc Bourdon, producer Christian Medawar (NFB)

A visual portrait of the city of Montreal through film footage shot in the 1950s. 

 
Heaven on Earth by Deepa Mehta

This film will is based on the true story of a Toronto residing Punjabi woman who is a victim of domestic violence. 

Examined Life by Astra Taylor

A film about world-famous philosphers taking their knowledge to the streets. 

Short Films:

Hungu by Nicolas Brault

An animated short film about a mother’s soul resurrected by music.

Rosa, Rosa by Félix Dufour Laperrièr

Rosa Rosa is an animated interweaving of individual and collective fates via a love story simply told by the couple themselves.

Baghdad Twist by Joe Balass

A visual memoir of one family’s life in Iraq before escaping to a new home in Canada in the fall of 1970.

A new film about the intersection of art and life

Check out this trailer for Roadsworth: Crossing the Line, a film that looks at an artist who embeds art into the streets in a clever way. Director Alan Kohl’s debut documentary follows Montreal artist “Roadsworth,” who forces the city and its citizens to question the meaning of public space. His work lands him with heavy fines and arouses hot debate over the meaning of art, in ways that could never be argued in the confines of a typical gallery.

This NFB and Loaded Pictures co-production will be hitting festivals soon, so keep an eye out.

The NFB brings history to life at Sunny Side of the Doc 2008.

New initiative focuses on promoting professional filmmakers

This week, the online video-sharing site, YouTube, is launching their new Screening Room (www.youtube.com/ytscreeningroom) with a series of professional-quality short films – including Torill Kove’s Oscar-winning short, The Danish Poet.

The Screening Room is a place for filmmakers to distribute their work and share profits. YouTube will add four new films every two weeks.

Other current films include:

Love and War
Our Time is Up
Are You the Favourite Person of Anybody

Upcoming films include Josh Raskin’s Academy Award-nominated animated short, I Met The Walrus.

Soon, filmmakers will be able to submit their own work to the Screening Room through an online submission process and users will be able to share opinions and buy DVDs and digital downloads of through the site. 

Four NFB productions and coproductions pick up seven 2008 Gemeaux Award nominations

The names of this year’s finalists for the 23rd Gemeaux Awards were announced at a press conference held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Montreal last week.

LIST OF FINALISTS

Best Biography or Portrait
• CITIZEN LAMBERT – JOAN OF ARCHITECTURE – Amélie Blanchard, Paul Cadieux, Teri Wehn-Damish (Philia Films/Les Films de la Perrine/National Film Board of Canada)

Best Documentary: Society
• THE INVISIBLE NATION – Richard Desjardins, Colette Loumède, Robert Monderie (National Film Board of Canada)

Best Documentary: Nature and Science
• MYSTICAL BRAIN – Colette Loumède, Isabelle Raynauld (National Film Board of Canada)

Best Animation Series or Program
• LÉON IN WINTERTIME - Laurence Bégeot, Emmanuel Bernard, Marc Bertrand, Marie-Josée Corbeil, Christine Côté, François Deplanck, Pascal le Nôtre (Folimage/TPS Jeunesse/Divertissement Subséquence/ National Film Board of Canada)

Best Script: Documentary
• Richard Desjardins, Robert Monderie – THE INVISIBLE NATION (NFB)

Best Editing: public affairs, documentary – program
• Myriam Poirier – CITIZEN LAMBERT – JOAN OF ARCHITECTURE (Philia Films/Les Films de la Perrine/ National Film Board of Canada)

Best Original Music Score: Documentary
• Claude Fradette – THE INVISIBLE NATION (National Film Board of Canada)