1,222 Matches Found
Feature-length documentary as part of Pierre Perrault's Abitibian Cycle. The filmmaker questions the past and present of Abitibi and draws up, face to face, the promises of colonization in the 1930s and the great disappointment caused by the closing of the land in the 1970s. There are witnesses to the heroic era, including the cultivator Hauris Lalancette, as well as extracts from films by Father Maurice Proulx (1934-1940).
The wind is one of the strongest natural forces around us. Because it is generated by temperature differences in air masses, wind power is, in fact, a form of solar energy. Harness the Wind traces the history of attempts to control and use wind energy, and projects into the future to visualize the potential of wind-power technology.
In this short documentary, Canadian poet Andrew Suknaski introduces us to Wood Mountain, the south central Saskatchewan village he calls home. In between musings on his poetry, which is tinged with nostalgia and the vast loneliness of the plains, the poet discusses the area’s multicultural background and Native heritage, as well as the customs and stories of these various ethnic groups.
A man makes a bet with himself to stop smoking, but he can't.
Features pregnant mothers Marsha Baker, Shaheera Bieber and pregnant couple Claire Prieto and Roger McTair. Also included in the footage are interviews with Dr. J.E. Milligan of the Toronto Women College Hospital and a fitness classes for pregnant women at the Toronto Women's Club.
This short documentary records Anne Cools’ 1978 run for the Liberal Party nomination in Rosedale, one of Toronto's largest and socially most diverse federal ridings. The film records her bid for political power, and explains the nomination contest, a basic step in the Canadian electoral process. Because she was competing against the Liberal Party's preferred candidate, the nomination battle in Rosedale turned into one of the most innovative and fascinating in the history of Canadian politics.
This film represents artistic longing set against the inability to find ones way. A male figure lies in a void. He rises cautiously to action, only to encounter darkness, confusion and directions that lead back to his own powerlessness.
A moving record of a natural disaster, Volcano documents the effect of a sudden volcanic eruption on the tiny island of Haimaey, off the coast of Iceland. Blasts of flame, clouds of black smoke and showers of rock erupt from the screen in a poignant portrait of a stricken town.
A compilation of satirical anti-smoking clips.
This short animation features four guests of curious demeanour who commit unforgivable acts at the dining table. Food flies everywhere while the guests prop their feet up and talk with their mouths full. Thankfully, Lady Fishbourne’s eating etiquette instructions will show these dinner party misfits the error of their ways.
Wild rice is an important source of food and revenue for many Anishinaabe people, who sometimes travel hundreds of kilometres to harvest the grain in the region around Kenora, Ontario.
In the mountainous country near Lillooet, British Columbia, eleven-year-old Kevin Alec of the Fountain Indian Reserve learns to make fishnets with his grandfather, and skin and tan hides with his aunt. He goes fishing with his grandmother and horseback riding with his brother. Life is full of wonderful things to do and to learn. Will Kevin eventually abandon his traditional way of life or will it be a source of continuing enrichment? This film is part of the Children of Canada series.
"Boredom" consists of a series of images portraying the movements of one character. The character performs acts with no apparent reason or result. His life is his art. We watch him as he lives his day. He walks, he looks, he loves, he dreams. The subject "Boredom" is the title; all images are made as interesting as possible, but they have no exterior meaning.
"evokes absence through elliptical continuity and loneliness through the repetition of ... archetypal images" Ian Birnie
A Canada Vignette giving a humorous animated version of the history of Fort Prince of Wales from its construction to its capture by the French.
This vignette shows the ceremonial totem-pole raising by the Nisgha Nation at Ayanish.
This very short documentary film depicts the spring and fall migratory visits of snow geese to Cap Tourmente, Québec.
There's no point in fleeing the city, because the problems of the entire country are concentrated there. Montreal's future isn't entirely uncertain: one only has to look at the many American cities that have preceded us in this endeavor to discover the choices available. Thus, we know that bedroom communities are merely a temporary and illusory refuge. Sooner or later, we will have to confront the city head-on and address the very root of the cancer that is eating away at it, in order to transform it into an entity conducive to human happiness.
An unconventional version of The Christmas Carol.
Individualized for profit, yet harmonious in its whole, Düsseldorf has met and largely conquered the conflicting demands of economic growth and human environment.
A short film commissioned by CBC based on a poem by Canadian poet Irving Layton.
One of six Canada Vignettes from the NFB production Don Messer - His Land and His Music, featuring one of the principal performers, Don Messer, who has since passed away.
A short public service announcement of the blue jay.
The human side of town planning, as exemplified in Baltimore, Maryland. The Coldspring Project concerned a proposed housing development for lower and upper income levels on a three hundred-acre site adjoining a wildlife sanctuary. The film records the differences aired in meetings of various interest groups that tried to modify the plan according to their views, and the compromise reached, based on plans drawn up by Montréal architect Moshe Safdie.
Documentary about Charles Gagnon, Québécois politician, FLQ member and communist leader.
Wong's first colour videotape bears the influence of several artistic genres popular in the 1970s, including performance and body art. We see Kenneth Fletcher draw several millilitres of blood from his arm and inject the contents of the syringe into Paul Wong's back, just under the skin. The camera closes in on this, observing the slow response of the immune system as the skin turns red and purple. What was originally intended as a sort of ritual uniting the young men as blood brothers, with implicit reference to drug use, has become a disturbing and dangerous act, when AIDS evokes our deepest fears and anxieties.
In the film, produced for the series "Young Scientists", for the CBC, a group of young people on vacation share the discovery of the application of the lever in some applications of everyday life.
Backyard Theatre is a documentary about playwright Michel Tremblay and director André Brassard’s flavourful brand of Quebec theatre, which captured the earthy wit and joual (slang) of Montreal's East End working-class neighbourhood. The film features impromptu improvisation by the cast of Les belles-soeurs and Demain matin, Montréal m'attend, two genre-defining plays.
"The VAG exhibition space was staged with a four walled cube, 8’X 8’ which was padded internally. The four walls and the open ceiling were monitored by video cameras. Wong entered the gallery, climbed a ladder and disappeared into the blue cube. Personally I was very uneasy about the work at this time. Knowing that [Kenneth] Fletcher was a close friend of Wong’s who had only months before committed suicide. I felt perhaps Wong would attempt his own cathartic self-mutilation as we all watched. As Wong’s slow pacing and wall assaulting became more intense the audience picked up the momentum of his energies. The intensity of the performance became overpowering. Not knowing how far Wong has planned his own movements, one began to wonder if he was indeed going to bash himself into unconsciousness as some observers had predicted." - Arthur Perry, Vanguard Magazine 1979
Viewers outside Canada, and Canadians themselves, here have the pleasure of looking at, understanding, and discovering the many facets of this vast land, presented in choice film footage that is at once informative, visually appealing, and absorbing.
An animated film showing a woolly mammoth and its offspring. These animals lived on the Canadian tundra over ten thousand years ago.
A sitting portrait of John's friend Lis Guindon holding her months-old daughter Marie Claire, in their sitting-room in Cabbagetown, Toronto. They later moved to Quebec and lost contact with John. A single-shot film, taken at 3 seconds per frame over 2 hours, lit with a single table-lamp and using 3-second time exposures on each frame. Mothers particularly are amazed and amused by this film, saying it evokes their experience.
The true identity of an undercover RCMP narcotics agent is discovered by the criminals he is investigating and his family pays the price.
Canadian animated short film by George Geertsen.
A short documentary on the charms of cross-country skiing. Beyond the formal beauty of the images, there floats a certain nostalgia for unknown landscapes. Something rare that pushes the neophyte to want to follow these free men, on the white paths, on exhilarating walks, taking the time to look at the landscape. Film without words.
In Montréal's east-end, a group of over-grown kids, disappointed in their lives, spend their time hanging out on street corners, patronizing bars and frequenting seedy apartments and back alleys.
Some of life's most profound questions are tackled by ten children ranging in age from six to eleven. They give their spontaneous views on God, the beginning of life, what happens to the spirit when one dies, where one's soul goes at night, and numerous other questions about life. The magic of animation and modern camera techniques illustrate the children's imaginative ruminations and conclusions.
An engaging illustration, by animation artist Rhoda Leyer, of the fable in which the warm sun proves to the cold wind that persuasion is better than force when it comes to making a man take off his coat.
"Montréal under the snow and the cold winter. It is the period of the year when the garage owners strike it rich. The automobile at the service of man? This small opus would rather show the contrary. This is one in a series of eight films titled “Chronicle of Everyday Life,” a project that filmmaker Jacques Leduc took four years to realize, and whose goal was to revisit Direct Cinema at a moment when it was already heavily “contaminated” by mainstream TV." - Anthology Film Archives
Female composers' names are mentioned throughout history.
In this short animation based on an Inuit legend, a goose captures the fancy of an owl, a weakness for which he will pay dearly. The sound effects and voices are Inuktitut, but the animation leaves no doubt as to the unfolding action. A story with the wry humor characteristic of many Inuit tales.
A short history of one of the traditional dances of Acadia--the quadrille.
A look at November 15, 1976, the date the Parti Québécois seized power in the provincial elections, a victory that gave rise to an unprecedented outburst of joy at the Center Paul-Sauvé, a place where PQ sympathizers gathered.
Video transformations of documentary footage of a woman giving birth, assisted by members of a religious commune. Isolation confronts the communal, the gruesome confronts the holy in this most mysterious of events.
Seasoned drug smuggler and thief François “Chico” Tremblay is tired of his modest lifestyle. Given the opportunity to earn $50,000 killing a prominent New York City gangster, he leaps at the opportunity, ignoring the warnings of Montreal’s leading mob boss, who has forbidden local criminals from taking the assignment. Upon his return, Chico discovers he is being pursued from all sides, prompting an unlikely response: he calls a local talk radio show and starts revealing the mafia’s most carefully guarded secrets. As his revelations get more shocking, so do the tactics of his adversaries, culminating in a devastating gut punch of a finale.
The remarkable construction of the venerable snowshoe is demonstrated from start to finish. Atikamekw Elders Mariane and Athanas Jacob take us into the forest to select the tree that will become a fresh new pair of snowshoes.
Close-up photographs of baskets, tools and utensils used in the past and still used today by the L'ilawat of Canada. Printed notes describe the use of each item
Animated images showing the variety of people who live in Canada.
Film-dossier on workers' struggles against industrial diseases.
In the 1970s, young people from Baie-Comeau – Hauterive sought to take their place in an industrial society dedicated to work and consumption. Often left to their own devices while waiting to enter the job market, many of them seek their paths in artistic creation. The feast of St. John 74 gives them an opportunity to shout their existence loud and clear and to shake up the existing order. We follow them here in their adventure and their reality.
A visual interpretation of the poem "Riverdale Lion" by Canadian poet and essayist John Robert Colombo.
Frank Jenkinson, eighty-two, has been digging for fish for twenty-five years. His unorthodox conservationist practices have increased the numbers of the salmon population in the Jarvis Inlet from a modest 500 to 25 000. Using a spade and accompanied by his dog, Frank wades up and down the stream, digging for the newly hatched salmon that lie buried in the gravel. Without his intervention they risk dying before reaching maturity.
A ghost is discovered in a deserted hotel.
In the fall of 1939, more than 600 fishermen and fish handlers in the tiny town of Lockeport, Nova Scotia walked the picket line in front of the town's only employers, Swim Brothers and the Lockeport Company. Both fishplants had locked their doors rather than recognize the Canadian Fishermen's Union as official bargaining agent. For eight weeks, as autumn turned to winter, the men, with their wives and families, held firm. It was a bread-and-butter struggle that made national headlines--one of the first major attempts by Nova Scotia fishermen and fishhandlers to win union recognition, and one of the first major tests of the N.S. Trade Union Act, passed in 1937.