Category — NFB News

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.

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.

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
 

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.

$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.

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)

First in series to celebrate recipients of 2008 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards

This short film (below) gives an overview of the career of Alanis Obomsawin. It is a mix of animation, interviews and reflections on her life as a singer, activist and filmmaker at the NFB.

The film was directed by Katerina Cizek (Filmmaker in Residence) and produced in collaboration with the National Arts Centre (NAC) to celebrate the recipients of the 2008 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards.

Short films were also made about the following award recipients:

Anton Kuerti, dancer and choreographer

Brian Macdonald, playwright

John Murrell, playwright

Eugene Levy, actor and writer

Michel Pagliaro, rock musician

Eric Charman, philanthropist

The Tragically Hip, rock group

Eight filmmakers were paired with the laureates to create a series of short films intended to be as idiosyncratic as the artists they portray.

The films were directed by:

Eric Tessier

Behind 3-D stereoscopic animation

The SANDDE animation technique allows for much greater spontaneity than traditional 3-D models, which are generated mathematically and tend to lack expression. Munro Ferguson, director of 3-D animation films, invites us into the world of SANDDE.

Behind SANDDE clip

The NFB is known throughout the world for its avant-garde animations and state-of-the-art techniques. SANDDE (Stereoscopic Animation Drawing Device), a good example, was invented by Roman Kroitor and perfected by Paul Kroitor and Greg Labute for IMAX Corp. The NFB has been part of this revolutionary technology right from the start.

The animator draws in space using a wand. This sends a signal to a sensor, which transposes the drawing into 3-D on a central computer. The data is then interpreted and projected in real time on a screen, so that the animator, wearing special glasses, can see his/her work in 3-D as it is executed.

Made with the help of the Filmmakers’ Assistance Program

Filmmakers Joe Baron and Seth Mendelson from Montreal offer the Web world a dose of well-produced, well-written video content in their 10-episode series Take Me Back.

These young filmmakers have been making waves with their storytelling talent and have been listed by Playback magazine as one of The Next 25: Canada’s Rising Stars and Dealmakers.  This series received help from the NFB’s Filmmakers’ Assistance Program. 

Exquisitely shot on a tiny budget, Baron and Mendelson say to Playback magazine that they wanted to make something different. Take Me Back has been creating quite a buzz online for viewers who want to see episodic web television done with a cinematic edge and a storyline. Check out the first episode below.

Take Me Back - Chapter 1 from Joe and Seth on Vimeo.

2008 Gala of the Governor General’s awards

Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma Opens the festival gala

Vancouver’s documentary film festival DOXA starts May 27 until June 1 and this year, five NFB productions have been accepted, and DOXA’s opening gala event will features NFB’s and White Pine Pictures feature, Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma. This film was an official selection at the acclaimed International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam and of Sundance and looks at global crises from an intensely close and personal perspective of one man who saw first-hand the outcomes some of the world’s most horrifying political calculations.

**** "Reed crafts an efficient, effective portrait of a man whose simple insistence on acting and helping, rather than retreating to safety, defines him as nothing less than a hero." – Now Magazine

Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma
Director Patrick Reed follows former MSF/Doctors without Borders president Dr.Orbinski as he revisits the places torn with war and famine that he was stationed such as Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Somalia. It is a reflective look at how he struggles with the past, and being present in the making of world history.

Opening Night Gala
Tuesday May 27 | 7:00 pm | Empire Granville 7 Theatre

Also check out Vancouver based talent such as the director Meghna Haldar of Dirt, and director co-Producer Baljit Sangra of Warrior Boyz who will both have their World Premiere’s at DOXA.

Dirt
Meghna Haldar’s film gets down and dirty in filth and filmmaking. Exploring what it “dirty” means in different societies, and the obsession of being clean. It features many opinions and experts, such as sanitation artists, priests, and poop scientists.

Join the Facebook group!
Saturday May 31 | 7:00 pm | Vancity Theatre

Warrior Boyz
Many young men from the South Asian community have died in gang-related violence in Metro Vancouver. Director Baljit Sangra’s documentary Warrior Boyz takes an unflinching look at the root causes of gang violence, and offers real solutions and a hard-fought hope for the future.
Saturday May 31 | 5:00 pm | Vancity
Sunday June 1 | 11:00 am | Vancity Theatre

Finding Home: Three Stories
Recent Governor General Award recipient and prolific filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin’s film Gene Boy Came Home will be featured in this short film program. This film looks at the life of a man from the Odanak Indian Reserve who left home at a young age to work in construction in the states, and then enlisted in the US Marines, finding himself fighting in Vietnam War. The film looks at his experiences of war when he returned to his homeland, and how he fought still with his memories, and people’s reaction to him afterwards.

Gene Boy Came Home will be screened along with Kevin Lee Burton’s short film Writing the Land about the Musqueam people who have lived on the land that has now become Vancouver City, for thousands of years. This film takes an interesting look at the changing city, and tradition and homeland.
Also featured in this program is the world premiere of Policy Baby: The Journey of Rita/Bev directed by Susan Stewart and Michael Glassbourg.

Sunday June 1 | 2:30 pm | Vancity Theatre

Junior
Isabelle Lavigne and Stéphane Thibault’s film Junior, is shot in cinema verité style, and gives the viewer an inside look to junior hockey, the business, the pressure of winning, and making it to the NHL. With no interviews, just moments, this film shows another side to Canadian’s love affair with the sport, and what the role that the hockey industry plays on these young men’s lives and careers. Won best Canadian Documentary Feature at the Hot Docs festival in Toronto.

Saturday May 31 | 2:30 pm | Vancity Theatre

Club Native
Tracey Deer’s second film, Club Native explores an unspoken issue from her hometown, Kanawake. This is the issue of membership, and who qualifies for being “Native”. Historical discriminatory standards were placed on Aboriginal communities across North America, and this issue still remains in a large question mark, and threat to the identity of those who living on the reserve who have been classified, “Non-Native” and for those who decided to fall in love with men or women from outside the Mohawk community. Tracey Deer’s personal approach looks at members of her own family and friends dealing with this issue, as well as the historical context that placed them in this situation.

Thursday May 29 | 9:00 pm | Vancity Theatre

Check out the DOXA program for more films, and descriptions!

Why Documentaries Matter
A Talk by Tom Perlmutter
Delivered to the NFB Hot Docs Doc Summit
April 25, 2008

Welcome to the 5th annual Hot Docs NFB Doc Summit. Today various presenters will speak about important policy issues that affect the structure and methods by which documentaries are produced. The subjects include terms of trade, C-10 and equity. This kind of debate is certainly vital to maintain a vibrant documentary culture. But I want to take a few minutes to step back - and give a context for why we should even care about such things. I want to talk today about why documentaries matter.

This may seem self-evident given the enduring popularity of the form and the important window on the world that documentaries have revealed to audiences globally. Over the last fifteen years there has been a veritable explosion of specialty channels built on various forms of documentary and factual programming-Discovery Channel, Canal D, History Television, the Documentary Channel. Documentary has become an accepted, if still niche, part of the feature film world. The remarkable success of this festival is testimony enough to the vitality of the documentary. But sometimes what is most obvious needs to be the most questioned. Popularity does not necessarily mean that something matters. I do believe documentaries matter, and I believe they matter for reasons that are not so self-evident. I want to look at a particular kind of documentary and make an argument for why it is the beating heart of what the form is about. This is the visionary documentary, the documentary as cinema, the documentary created by an auteur filmmaker who has rendered the real into image by force and virtue of the imagination.

It is the kind of work that we aspire to at the NFB and that we deliver when we are at our best. Its roots lie in the Griersonian injunction to use "art as a hammer," an art that is a creative engagement with actuality.

The actuality that I am speaking about is not the news or current affairs programming like The Fifth Estate that may sometimes call their work documentaries. Their intent is to inform, to uncover what may be hidden, to determine the facts of the case, whatever they may be. The facts are what remain important at all times. The facts take precedence over narrative, over emotional appeal, over the characters represented in the piece even though all of these elements in various proportions may be important in how the work is presented.

The actuality that I am speaking about is also different from what is now commonly called "factual entertainment" like Survivor, Project Runway, Big Brother or The Biggest Loser. These are a particular mix of game show and soaps whose intent is fundamentally melodramatic. They lack the reportorial factuality of current affairs or the sub-text and resonance of the documentary. Let me be clear that I am not in any way denigrating the form. These are great inventive genres of popular culture and a necessary part of how living cultures are formed and remain dynamic.

But if that is all that we had-the factual and the melodramatic-we would as a society feel, even if we couldn’t name it, a profound sense of absence. We would feel that something was missing. We might even feel, in some indefinable way, that we had been cheated. The lack would be a very real one: it would be the absence of meaning.

The actuality that I am speaking about-the documentary as a work fully informed by the point of view of a creator, a filmmaker-is driven by meaning. At its heart is a moral point of view about the sanctity of the individual human being and the significance of the just life in human society. Politically, it can cover the spectrum from right to the left, but they will share this unbending commitment to meaning.

The documentarian "bears witness." To bear witness is to see and to name. This is not a simple kind of seeing and naming. This is not the seeing and naming of the reading primer: Look, Jane, look. See Spot run. It is an imaginative seeing, a seeing of vision, a re-visioning that pushes to an authentic re-naming. What has been seen can no longer be unseen; what has been named can no longer be obscured.

To see is to engage; to see is to enter into a profound relationship with that which is seen; to see is to learn how to see. Here is the paradox of imaginative seeing. To truly see requires a complete anchoring in the being of the creator who sees, yet the very act of seeing alters the creator, who will never see in the same way again. The imaginative act is to risk oneself totally in the seeing. The imaginative being will be radically challenged by the act of seeing. It is that challenge that becomes the explosive material on the screen.

The same is true, in a different alchemic reaction, for the audience-that’s where the power of the documentary lies. I, the viewer, in a most perfect and complete engagement with the work, recreate that dangerous journey of creator and put myself at risk. We all expose ourselves; we all become Sauls on the road to Damascus.

Most cultures have two grand expository traditions. The first is the narrative one.
Homer’s Odyssey, the novels of Dickens and Tolstoy, the feature films of Coppola and Cronenberg form part of this great flow of narrative work. As early as the 4th century BC Aristotle laid out the basic laws for narrative form-of which all the film courses and handbooks on screenwriting and story are but variants.

In this tradition what matters above all else is story; it trumps every other consideration. It may borrow the conventions of documentary, as in works by Gus Van Sant (The Elephant), Peter Berg (The Kingdom), Paul Greengrass (Flight 93) and many others, but those conventions remain and will always remain subservient to delivering the story.

The documentary, too, has a great allegiance to story. Narrative structure matters, matters crucially. The first question any documentary professional will ask about a project is: what is the story?

Yet, at the end of the day, story is not the essential thing of the documentary, and the documentary does not fall into that great narrative stream I spoke about. It finds its place in the second of the two great expository movements of cultural creation: the prophetic tradition. Not prophetic in the sense of soothsaying or fortune telling. We do not go to documentaries as we do to our daily horoscope. The documentary is prophetic in an Old Testament kind of way: the thundering denunciation of social injustice (Triage or Le peuple invisible); the admonishments of disaster if we do not mend our ways (Manufactured Landscapes, An Inconvenient Truth); the confronting of the powerful (Confessions of an Innocent Man, Fog of War); the courage to uphold the human (Up the Yangtze, Born into Brothels).

The documentarian is motivated by moral outrage. That is why documentaries most often deal with subject matter that makes us uncomfortable or exasperated or angry or profoundly sad. But the documentarian is also motivated by visionary passion. Because if the documentarian holds up a mirror to reflect the world as it is, it is also a magic mirror that, implicitly, reflects how the world could be. How it should be. Better. Transformed.

So prophetic in a lyrical way too: gazing in delight at the world about us (Winged Migration); reflecting on the possibilities of the human (Spellbound) and celebrating boundless creativity (Buena Vista Social Club). This too is the documentary, the documentary that transports us into realms of wonder.

Prophetic, too, in the manner of William Blake, artist, poet, visionary-Blake, who proclaimed that "imagination is not a state; it is human existence itself"; Blake, whose visions were an expression of an acute, detailed reading and denunciation of the forces of oppression of his day. Blake, whose images and words haunt and inspire us to this day. Blake, who today may have turned to the documentary as his medium of expression.

In this country we have made the documentary our own particular form of cinematic expression. You might say we have a national genius for it. Part of it may have to do with the unique social experiment that Canada is.

In his book on Canada, Reflections of a Siamese Twin, John Ralston Saul writes, "Canada’s strength-you might even say what makes it interesting-is its complexity; its refusal of the conforming, monolithic nineteenth-century nation-state model. That complexity has been constructed upon three deeply rooted pillars, three experiences-the aboriginal, the francophone, the anglophone." Today, there is a fourth pillar-our diverse population. Canada is in the process of articulating a profound, complex, nuanced sense of an evolving country, with a very different notion of the nation state; a truly revolutionary notion of a multi-identitied peoples anchored in common civic, democratic values.

In that way Canada may be more the revolutionary aspiration that Blake cried out for in his great prophetic work, America. If that is the case, then it is no wonder that documentary becomes a national mode of imaginative expression. Documentary is, by virtue of its ethics, its methods of operation and its creative engagement with actuality, at the leading edge of social transformation. I will add that no cultural institution has taken to heart that truth and given it its fullest expression as has the NFB.

So that’s why documentaries matter. Not only do they matter. They are essential. In the cultural arena they are the anchor points of vision and meaning. That is where their value lies. And even if they do not have the audience reach or the box office potential of the narrative tradition-well neither did the prophets. Our documentarians may be voices crying in the wilderness, but as long as we have those voices we have hope.

Six filmmakers will be selected for six-month filmmaking project

The CFC NFB Feature Documentary Program is a new laboratory for the development of successful theatrical documentaries. The program will be hosted at the Canadian Film Centre starting in January 2009.

Four to six accomplished Canadian directors with strong concepts for theatrical documentaries will be selected to participate in this six-month development process.

The course was co-designed by the CFC and the National Film Board of Canada to focus on the challenges of creating theatrical documentaries. It will partner participants with a “dream team” of collaborators (including leading Canadian and international documentarians and craftspeople).

Participants’ projects will be considered for production by the NFB at the end of the program.

Submission deadline is August 29, 2008.

Find out more here.

NFB Web site honoured in ‘Best Documentary Series’ category

Filmmaker in Residence, the online documentary series focusing on public health issues, won a Webby Award today in the Documentary Series category.

In this project, director Katerina Cizek is stationed at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, working with health professionals on the front lines. She tells their stories on the Web site through many forms of media - film, photography, text and immersive online documentary.

Find out more about the Filmmaker in Residence team here.

The Webby Awards are considered by many to be the most prestigious of Web awards. According to the Webby Awards Web site, the awards are presented by "The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities."

Other nominees in the Documentary Series category were:

Frontline World (frontline world)

Labcast (MIT Media Lab)

Project Song (NPR)

The Boy in the Moon (The Globe and Mail)

The Filmmaker in Residence site was also nominated for a 2008 “Rockie” award at the Banff Television Festival earlier this week.

Dogwalker wins two awards; 24 Days in Brooks and Aboriginality one each

Photo: Dana Inkster (director, 24 Days in Brooks), Dominique Keller (director & co-producer, Aboriginality), Rosie Dransfeld (director & co-producer, Dogwalker) and Bonnie Thompson (Executive Producer, National Film Board)

Three NFB productions were honoured with four prizes at the Alberta Film & Television Awards in Edmonton last week.

The Rosie awards were distributed by the Albert Motion Pictures Industry Association (AMPIA) to winners among 23 categories. The awards celebrate production excellence and are known as "Alberta’s highest honour".

The awards were given to:

Best Animator
Dan Gies, Aboriginality

Best Cultural Diversity
24 Days in Brooks - Available on DVD

Best Director, Doc over 30 min - Rosie Dransfeld, The Dogwalker
Best Doc over 30 min
The Dogwalker - Available on DVD

About the winners:

The Dogwalker
A documentary about Michael Borowski — amateur playwright, rambling philosopher,and resilient survivor of childhood brain injury.

24 Days in Brooks
This film looks at 24 days of the first-ever strike at a meat-packing plant in Brooks, Alberta – showing immigrants and non-immigrant Canadians banding together to fight for respect, dignity, and positive change.

Aboriginality
An animated film that uses cutting edge animation and hoop dancing with grassroots hip hop to offer a unique glimpse into the traditional First Nations identity.

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees. You can find a full list of the nominees and recipients here.

NFB Web site honoured in ‘Best Documentary Series’ category

Filmmaker-in-Residence, the online documentary series focusing on public health issues, won a Webby Award today in the Documentary Series category.

In this project, director Katerina Cizek is stationed at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, working with health professionals on the front lines. She tells their stories on the Web site through many forms of media - film, photography, text and immersive online documentary.

Find out more about the Filmmaker-in-Residence team here.

The Webby Awards are considered by many to be the most prestigious of Web awards. According to the Webby Awards Web site, the awards are presented by "The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities."

Other nominees in the Documentary Series category were:

Frontline World (frontline world)

Labcast (MIT Media Lab)

Project Song (NPR)

The Boy in the Moon (The Globe and Mail)

The Filmmaker-in-Residence site was also nominated for a 2008 Rockie award at the Banff Television Festival earlier this week.

Two-week retrospective celebrates career with 12 screenings

The Musem of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is highlighting Alanis Obomsawin and her films as the subject of a major retrospective from May 14-26.

The two-week retrospective includes 12 film screenings beginning with a double bill featuring her first film, Christmas at Moose Factory, and one of her recent films, Waban-aki: People from Where the Sun Rises.

Also featured in the retrospective is the so-called "Oka Quartet" — four films inspired by the 1990 Oka crisis:

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance
My Name is Kahentiiosta
Spudwrench – Kahnawake Man
Rocks at Whiskey Trench

The four films are also being re-released as a commemorative DVD box-set, entitled 270 Years of Resistance, complete with a book of essays.

On May 2 Alanis Obamsawin also receives the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. 

Documentary opens in US after record-breaking Canadian run

Up the Yangtze opened as the top grossing film in the United States in per-theatre-average this past weekend.

The film also opened to rave reviews from American media outlets including the New York Times, the Village Voice and Time Out New York. (Highlights below)

The film’s Stateside success follows a record-breaking Canadian theatrical run. This week marks another milestone as Up the Yangtze becomes one of only 3 English Canadian documentaries to gross over $500,000 at the Canadian box office, joining The Corporation and Sharkwater.

Last week, director Yung Chang won the Don Haig award at the Hot Docs film festival, and the film won Best Film and Best Cinematography at the River Run festival.

Watch the new trailer for Up The Yangtze here.

Review Highlights:

"Astonishing"

New York Times

"A potent indictment of the damage done. Says more about what’s being lost–culturally, geographically, morally — than any parade of talking heads ever could."

Time Out New York

"Brilliant… [A] lucid, beautifully observed portrait."

The Village Voice