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A cemetery in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada is seen through the eyes of its former superintendent.

A film pastorale set in the early summer near Elora, Ontario, where music students practice out-of-doors. Lush green fields, towering elms and a rippling stream near an old farmhouse provide a rich setting for young musicians playing solo or in groups on flutes, strings, and piano. Music has charm indeed when the mood is of lilac and the sweet pipings of spring.

A humorous account of the pioneering journey of Lady Frances Simpson, along with her piano, from England to Manitoba.

A biography of Enrico Fermi, the scientist who discovered the chain reaction in nuclear physics. Follows his career in Italy and later in America, and his meetings with other scientists, including Mme Curie, Einstein, Oppenheimer and Pauli. Produced by Harvard Project Physics with a grant from the Ford Foundation.

a portrait of the changing social and political context of the nuclear family in the 1970s, focusing on four families of varying circumstances: a traditional nuclear family with a special needs child, a separated family, a single-parent family and a family in a communal living environment.

"In an effort to explore the flexibility of Telidon, Canada's videotex system, Pierre Moretti, animation artist from the National Film Board, used, in the graphic mode, the geometric figures which form the basis for Telidon's picture description instructions. Thus he created this short animated film."

Using life-like seal fur puppets, this animated short by Co Hoedeman tells the traditional Inuit tale of the owl and the raven. Why did the raven’s feathers turn jet-black? And what did the owl have to do with it?

This short documentary examines the changing relations between labour and management in the long-established company town of Trail, BC, in which 90% of the workforce is employed by Cominco, the world’s largest lead-zinc smelter. The metal workers in the town are outspoken about the health risks associated with their line of work, and a debate about unionization ensues. The days of paternalistic management are gone, and the emphasis is now on participation and involvement. An eventual strike over dissatisfaction with labour relations turns violent when management, union executives, and workers clash over competing interests.

In 1969, the federal government expropriated two hundred and fifteen families in eight towns of New Brunswick in order to build a national park. Not only did these families lose their homes and their memories, they also lost their livelihoods.

A documentary history of the exciting, sometimes ill-fated exploration of Canada's Arctic, produced jointly by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the National Film Board of Canada. The film shows the challenge and the rewards of the far north and, from rare film footage, some of the exploits of the first and last men to run the gauntlet of the cold: Byrd's flight; Stefansson's sled journey; Captain Bernier's explorations; and finally, the voyage of the U.S.S. Manhattan.

This short film from the Canada Vignettes series depicts the Montreal of 1905-1910 with hand-painted vintage postcards.

"A documentary film which looks at the issue of British Columbia Native land claims and how the aboriginals link their culture to the land, which has been stolen by the dominant white culture of North America. In the film, the argument is presented that the lands have been taken from the Natives without any clear treaty agreements and how attempts had been made to wipe out Native culture through the Residential School system. " Produced by the Union of BC Indian Chiefs in 1975.

In this short film by animator Evelyn Lambart, a handsome frog courts and wins a mouse for his bride. The colourful animation does full justice to the events that take place during and after the wedding breakfast. Sung by Derek Lamb to lute accompaniment.

A young man overwhelmed by humdrum mechanized life chooses something different.

John and his mother painting in the countryside, in summer. His mother has always painted and still does so at ninety years of age. When John and his sisters were small, she used to take them to paint in the countryside, and this was another one of those occasions, though it had been quite unusual since John’s pre-teen years before. The background scenery to the film is also the theme the painters are dealing with: a farmer’s brown field being ploughed by a red and white tractor; a grey silo, green trees and a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. As we reach the end, we get a glimpse of John’s finished painting; another unusual occurrence.

Short film made 1974 and broadcast in 1975 for CBC featuring Grit Laskin.

An engaging story of young enterprise, pitfalls, and eventual success that all young viewers will enjoy. It is about two young Greek boys in Montréal who try to earn some extra money for a trip to their sunny homeland by delivering pizzas. The misadventures they encounter and how they surmount them make an amusing story, full of youthful initiative.

This short documentary profiles the Canadian military’s organization, logistical, and security operations at the XXI Olympiad held in 1976 in Montréal. The scale of the operation was large: 16,000 troops were mobilized to provide protection for 7,500 athletes, countless VIPs, and the general public on 138 sites located in Montreal, Bromont, and Kingston. This film offers a behind-the-scenes look at the planning and synchronization necessary to mount a successful international event of massive proportions.

The Games included many sports seen in Olympic competition, plus others--for example, pirautaqturniq, the Inuit skill of hitting an object with a ten meter-long sled dog whip. This film captures the all-out participation in the week-long events hosted by Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon, with competitors from all over the Arctic including Alaska, and with observers from the Soviet Union.

Document of various attractions in the historic Canadian National Exhibition, which takes place every year in Toronto, filmed entirely at night, at one frame per second with one-second exposures. Two rolls of film recorded in two consecutive years were used, the first of which consists of close-ups of each attraction, edited in-camera. The second roll is a single long wide-angle shot of the entire “avenue” of attractions, seen from the top of the historic observation tower, which has since been torn down. This scene was filmed continuously over an eight-hour period that began before nightfall, with exposure times increasing as daylight decreased and even after nightfall, ultimately transforming the night scene into a blurry mass created by two-minute exposures per frame.

This feature documentary offers an incisive look at Canadian politics at the 1976 Progressive Conservative Party leadership convention. Cape Bretoner Flora MacDonald is campaigning for the Party’s leadership, the first woman to do so. We follow MacDonald behind the scenes as she works with her staff to prepare policy, speeches, and strategies to win the race. We also get a glimpse of MacDonald’s sprightly and upbeat attitude as she puts her best foot forward in front of voters, media, and the Party’s elite.

The Priory is a public extended-care hospital in Victoria, British Columbia, for people suffering from chronic geriatric illnesses. Treatment is innovative. It is based on the theory that even the ordinary activities of a patient's life contain elements of therapy. The film shows us how patients are encouraged to do as much as they can for themselves despite their confinement to wheelchairs.

Man of the people, taxi driver, Jean Carignan is above all else one of the world's greatest violinists. In his hands reels become complex, intelligent creations, played with a virtuosity worthy of Paganni, and which continue the traditions of a genre passed on orally. A genre which has retained its popularity, and whose giants include Skinner, Coleman, Allard. Jean Carignan tackles their repertoire, as well as reaping the harvest of his exploration of Irish and Scottish musical traditions, which has made of him an internationally renowned specialist in Celtic music. This film is also a love story between an impoverished child and his violin, and provide a unique window into a remarkable era.

Don Messer: His Land and His Music celebrates the king of Maritime fiddling. It's 1969, and Messer's band is on a poignant, cross-Canada farewell tour. Poignant, because CBC-TV has just announced the cancellation of the long-running Don Messer's Jubilee. But if Messer's upset, he isn't showing it. Instead, he's in top form, packing them in from Halifax to Whitehorse: one curling rink, hockey arena and small-town theatre after another. More than a musician, Don Messer was a genuine folk icon, idolized by millions of fans who felt as though they knew him personally. Although he died in 1973, Messer has remained a vital presence in Canadian music. Fiddlers continue to be inspired by his old-time style. Don Messer: His Land and His Music marries cinematic innovation with irresistible, toe-tapping music - taking us on the road, into the studio and backstage with a one-of-a-kind, fun-loving band.

Kathleen Shannon describes the look and feel of her childhood to an artist friend, and uses his paintings and her visit to the ruins of the mining site where she grew up to reflect on her early life and how it influenced the adult she became.

After repeated attempts to obtain service from the public transportation authorities, these suburban Ottawa residents finally decided to do it themselves.

27 shorts films about francophone traditional music in America.

Impressions of a city, emphasizing lines and rectangular shapes. Made from stills superimposed and dissolved into each other.

A young woman walks the streets of Halifax, and speaks of her love of the gardens, her family, and life as a prostitute.

A visually fascinating and mildly ironic look at the Canadian people, this three-minute film is an animated version of a poem by Lionel Kearns. It is experimental in nature and well-stocked with brilliant graphics and an unusual sound track.

One of the most sensational get-rich-quick schemes that took place in France over 200 years ago with economist John Law at the helm.

Glenn Gould tells the tale of a student's winter journey from Toronto to distant Winnipeg with images and music reflecting the majesty of the North. Based on Gould's radio documentary of the same name.

This short documentary film illustrates the various ways people fight the high cost of energy by devising ingenious ways to use wood, the sun, and the wind. The film highlights one such project named the Ark. Using natural systems only, this bio-shelter ingeniously provides housing, heat, food and electricity for an entire family.

This tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale by Croatian director Zlatko Grgic traces man's checkered history with fire, and shows how growing carelessness in the form of overloaded sockets, smoldering cigarettes and other fire hazards can have highly undesirable consequences.

Feature-length documentary filmed in three locations as far apart as possible: Louisiana, Acadia and Quebec, but where Le reel du pendu is played – a musical piece performed on the violin, harmonica and guitar or the accordion for over two hundred years. Through this improvised music of a death row inmate, the spectator is invited to discover for himself “the sound of the French in America”.

A marauding gang of five causes mayhem in a peaceful Ukrainian village.

This short, experimental road movie is a study in mystery and atmosphere. Juxtaposing photographs on the screen with a woman's words, the film tells the story of a couple who drifts apart, of a journey with no return. Introspective and haunting, this mood piece is a travel album about intimacy and dispossession.

This very short documentary from the Hinterland Who's Who series introduces viewers to the musk ox, relative of the sheep and goat. They live in the most remote regions of the far North, and are now considered a protected species.

Filmmaker Giles Walker takes an informal look at how our best skiers work and live. Filmed in 1976, this short movie follows the Canadian ski team on a tight schedule in Chile and Argentina. With 2 ½ tons of equipment, speeds of up to 140 km/h, gruelling workouts and a dramatic theft, it's safe to say that downhill racing is not for the faint of heart.

Filmmaker Albert Kish revisits Montreal's St Lawrence Boulevard in the '70s. The street, also known as "The Main," is a little Europe with many languages, foods and small courtesies that make a stranger feel at home.

Short fictional film recounting the adventures of a gang of young boys with more than one trick up their sleeve. Together, they plan bad things to raise enough money to buy their dream radio station. To make matters worse, they have part of their nest egg stolen, although it is well hidden in a cabin. An investigation will follow to find the culprit of the "crime". Will they get their money back?

This documentary records the extraordinary determination of Jungle Jim Hunter to be the best ski racer in the world. We witness his grueling exercise routines, pre-race tensions, trials and deep religious faith of this dedicated athlete.

This short film from the Canada Vignettes series profiles a unique French-Canadian family, the Fourniers, 12 of whom work as stunt men and women for films.

A child's first discovery of wind--the silent, invisible something that tickles his fancy, ruffles his hair, ripples the grass around him--portrayed here in winsome animated drawings. But the artist also shows the elemental force that carries all before it. Without words but with sound effects, this is a film of universal appeal.

Les Vrais Perdants examines the subject of childhood education within the context of our competition-driven society. As they help children develop their talents, whether those be in hockey, gymnastics or piano, aren’t parents and coaches really seeking, consciously or unconsciously, to satisfy their own needs and fulfill their own dreams? The children might have something to say about that...

This film documents the efforts of a group of Canadians and Americans to save the whooping crane from extinction. They display great determination in their dealings with this independent, pre-Ice Age creature. The issues of wild animals imprinting on people and the preservation of wild animals in captivity are examined in this film. Produced in cooperation with the Canadian Wildlife Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

This short film presents Mr. Bate, an inventor who discovers a substitute for gasoline in barnyard manure. Even though he fits the classic mould of single-minded know-how and practical dreamer, his discovery is tried and tested. He demonstrates how his home-made digester does turn manure into potent methane gas that powers his auto. And for good measure, he demonstrates his latest sustainable invention – a bicycle powered by the bumps on the road.

Students take an examination.

Feature documentary on the agricultural Abitibi. This film is a real plea for the earth and for a more human kind of life in the face of a society that has become cold and insensitive.

The village of Old Crow and the people from the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation are located on the banks of the Porcupine River 80 miles inside the Arctic Circle. The film shows the lifestyles and spirit of the people of Old Crow, reflected in the writings of Gwich'in Edith Josie and the stories told by Elder Kenneth Nukon. Alanis Obomsawin wanted to document life in the community before the proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipe line was to go through. "Everything will be changed -- it will never be the same again".

Zlatko Grgic's short animated film depicts how humans evolved from the sea and the problems that ensued. Using humour, he shows how industry leads to waste and pollution, which in turn wreak havoc on the delicate balance of our ecosystems.

A made for the camera video collaboration with Steve Paxton, a unique pas de deux between videographer and dancer.

This short documentary takes us to St. John's Cathedral Boys' School, at Selkirk, Manitoba, one of the most demanding outdoor schools in North America. As the school can’t accommodate every student wishing to enroll, boys of 13 to 15 years old are put through an initiation tougher than they have ever faced. They paddle canoes through some 500 kilometers of wilderness in 2 weeks, portaging and camping all the way, thereby learning vital outdoor lore, cooperation and self-confidence.

This short documentary offers an account of the epic bicycle ride of seventy girls and one man from Montreal to Vancouver. Their ultimate goal is to raise money in order to fund their trip to Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan.

This film, based on the play of the same name, portrays the harsh lives of early Saskatchewan settlers and the foundation of the co-op movement on the Prairies.

This short film, in which a hunter is pursued, bound up and carried to a cave, tells the legend of a river, and of how fog came to the land. The story is enacted by Inuit using katadjak or throatsinging. The audience is locked in an alien world of sights and sounds where human activity seems propulsed by primeval forces.