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Thirteen-year-old Kelly travels from Los Angeles to Alaska to visit her father after her parents divorce.

Identical twin brothers on vacation are faced with an unexpected battle when their getaway spot is invaded by mercenaries. Using their martial arts expertise, the twins wage war against the invaders in order to free their kidnapped girlfriends.

A bighorn ram struggles to survive in the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. Prepared for the American television show, but did not air. First aired in Canada on November 27, 1983. Later shown on The Disney Channel.

Louis Vincent is found unconscious in a city park. He claims to a policewoman that he has been kidnapped. In addition to narrating the judicial investigation, the film becomes an open reflection on the power of the imagination.

In the 1980s, the Canadian Telidon videotex system was not only used for the transmission of text and image information in telecommunications, but also became the medium of choice for many artists. The short film Spirale is one of the “Telidon” works of early Canadian digital cinema. It uses the tool's vector graphics to create dizzying compositions in an op-art style.

At the annual ballet recital, Elizabeth, much to her chagrin, is cast in the part of the boy. The other girls in the ballet class ridicule her; her parents are unsympathetic. Only her free-spirited Aunt Eadie seems to understand.

Mirage offers a thoughtful and disturbing meditation on a wide variety of cinematic problems - the portrayal of women in film, the ability of a reassuring male commentary (“Dreams come true in Blue Hawaii”) to direct our gaze and our conventions of fantasy/dreamland. The film tests ones ability to pay attention. We keep seeing essentially the same image and hearing the same phrase yet we have a difficulty grasping what this film is about. The film has a mystery or haunting feeling to it that perhaps surfaces well after one has seen it, and is the basis of thought on the subject of the sexual portrayal of women on film. Mirage could be seen many times; perhaps the tail could be spliced to the head resulting in a continuous loop - as there is no clear beginning, middle, or end to the film – somewhat like the nature of our own existence. – Martin Rumsby, The Invisible Cinema

A young dog struggles to learn how to find a job.

A view of the life and works of the late Alex Colville, the celebrated Canadian painter. Shows the influence on his life and works of his experience as an artist during World War II, and of his relationship with his wife, Rhoda. Friends and critics speak of the construction and sense of menace in his work, and Colville comments on his sense of order, goodness, and contingency.

Two girls turn down two boys for more prosperous, motorized dates. In anger, the two teenage boys steal a car, booze up and accidentally meet up with the girls. The drivers of the two cars challenge each other, and a wild race starts that ends up with a horrifying accident. A fictional film, it dramatizes a situation where pride, alcohol and wheels combine with disastrous results.

In sixty seconds, animated images representing historical, sports, dramatic, documentary and animation films are woven together to illustrate the National Film Board's journey through fifty years of innovative filmmaking.

Features clips from 21 documentary and animation film classics, interviews with NFB filmmakers past and present, and incisive commentary from film critics and historians on the role and influence of the NFB during its first half century of existence.

This documentary short is a portrait of violinist, composer and dreamer Maurice Zbriger, who shared his music with Montrealers for over half a century. He hired musicians and singers and conducted them in free concerts financed with income from his ownership of Schwartz's, the famous smoked meat restaurant. The Concert Man looks at Zbriger's life, his passion for music and the people who were a part of his dream.

A fiddler's hand creates its own choreography is music is performed. This film is an attempt to share the dance. In the tradition and spirit of a Norman McLaren short, a light attached to a fiddle bow traces a dancing dot of light in darkness. The music was composed and is performed by Gordon Stobbe on fiddle and accompanied by Bill Doucette on guitar.

Using archival documents, fictions, current accounts, and excerpts from a theatrical creation, Paul Tana paints a nuanced portrait of the Italians of Montreal. From the first waves of immigration at the beginning of the century to the men and women taken to a prisoner of war camps during World War II, to the hardships and joys of building vibrant lives in Montréal. Caffè Italia Montréal chronicles a significant chapter in Canada’s history.

This documentary is about the conservation ethic in Canada that led to the national parks systems around the world. Includes interviews with the then-Minister of Natural Resources, Jean Chretien.

Wong uses his second generation Chinese-Canadian perspective to frame the Chinese here in the new world, Canada, and in the motherland, China. This is an intimate, personal view. Through his own “family network” and several trips to the People’s Republic of China, the artist gained access to the everyday, non-exotic world of the Chinese. A picture emerges of displaced cultures and traditions in transitions.

A skillful, sensual rendering of an intriguing performance orchestrated by the artist. Through a fog-laden atmosphere, iconic figures emerge to perform on a huge turntable. Our look at this garishly lit spectacle is mediated by the gaze of a female Red Guard. All flesh and brilliance, this tape appears to critique popular culture by robbing it of any ostensible content. Hollywood proverb says, beneath the surface of fake tinsel lies only the real tinsel – the detritus of our times.

The Opening of SkyDome: A Celebration - Andrea Martin and Alan Thicke co-hosted the 90-minute event on June 3, 1989, complete with songs written specifically for the celebration with over 5,000 performers which was broadcast nationwide on the CBC,

In Quebec 40s, orphans or abandoned children are placed in a gigantic psychiatric hospital where children were locked. Were they sick? No, they simply had no family. To escape this oppressive universe, they created a parallel world: the institution's basement where, in a maze of tunnels, they founded an independent company, with its rituals, spells. A young girl, Agnes, reigns over this underground world that adults seem to tolerate.

Intercut with illustrative stock footage, Adam's World present a short lecture by Elizabeth Dodson Gray, a feminist theologian, environmentalist, and futurist. She speaks to us about the severity of our global environmental crisis, and analyzes the root cause of this crisis as lying in the perceptions, beliefs, and assumptions of the patriarchal system we have inherited.

This feature documentary is a sequel to the 1966 documentary The Things I Cannot Change, which, by focusing on the Bailey family of Montreal, provided an anatomy of poverty in North America. Courage to Change explores what has happened to the Baileys in the intervening 18 years.

A documentary that offers an intimate glimpse of three respected yet controversial Québec writers. Now recognized at home and abroad, Louky Bersianik, Jovette Marchessault and Nicole Brossard have contributed greatly to the creation of a distinctive women's literature. Confirming that fresh approaches to literature are still possible, they have helped to heighten the awareness of the politics of language. Excerpts from their works vividly convey each woman's style, concerns and rhythms. They examine personal and global issues from a feminist perspective: human relationships, work, justice, poverty, loneliness, women's spirituality, and the future.

The Madballs are a zany animated rock band who rock and roll their way across the galaxy. Music is illegal on their home planet so they make a break for it on Earth.

The final instalment of this 3-part documentary series about Pierre Elliott Trudeau and René Lévesque spans the decade between 1976 and 1986. The film reveals the turbulent, behind-the-scenes drama during the Quebec referendum and the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution. In doing so, it also traces both Trudeau's and Lévesque's fall from power.

Performance artist/apartment cleaner David Roche looks at life and love as it impacts all the sexes.

We see John swinging on a swing he built in his studio. He shot the film by himself with the camera placed many feet away, so that while swinging, he continuously made the camera work one frame at a time, holding a remote control using a long cable. This enabled him to record each individual frame at the precise second that he passed by on the swing at a certain position within the arc of the swinging motion, thereby creating the illusion that he was frozen in the air, or flying in circles. In doing so dressed in white against a black background while using one-second exposures in each frame, he created the visual effect by which one perceives him as a series of brushstrokes. This film is a single shot, filmed continuously over one hour.

An aging piano player looks back on his life.

The fur trade is Canada's oldest industry, but today some people challenge the morality of killing animals for their fur. This film examines the public relations war raging between the industry and its opponents and takes an objective look at the ethical, environmental and economic issues raised by the debate. The struggle to win over public opinion has been joined by Indigenous peoples in Canada who fear that their way of life will be jeopardized if the fur industry is destroyed. The cycle of the industry is followed from the trapper's bush camp and the fur ranch to the final sale of a coat in the furrier's salon. Throughout the film, the conflicting opinions of fur industry representatives, animal rights activists and Indigenous people challenge the viewer to consider all aspects of this complex debate. —NFB

Haitians make up the largest black community in Quebec: there are over 40,000 of them, the vast majority of them living on the island of Montreal, where they are often the target of prejudice, hostility, and contempt.

Pianists Kuo-Yen of Taiwan and Pierre Jasmin of Québec met and fell in love while studying music in Vienna. The film is a "letter" from Pierre to Kuo-Yen, who has made the difficult decision to return to her native land. Jasmin is sending her the images, words, and music of their last days as a couple ... in Moscow. They had come there for Kuo-Yen to compete in the 8th Tchaikovsky Piano Competition; how she fared determined her future.

This short documentary depicts the stories of two hibakusha, survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This film follows them on their mission to New York as representatives of the Japanese Peace Movement at the second United Nations Special Session on Disarmament held in June 1982.

This hilarious short animation offers over 40 safety tips for homes with infants and young children. The film's hero is a very earnest, somewhat pompous, but endearing dog called Wally. A "professional" in home safety, Wally is assigned to a house with an infant whose parents have little safety consciousness. Accidents and near-accidents succeed each other with lightning speed, constantly putting Wally to the test.

Ten-year-old Sébastiana recounts the history and legends and explains the local customs of Andahuaylillas, Peru, a small village located high in the Andes. Their simpler way of life has persisted for over three centuries, undisturbed by modern society's technology and materialism.

Canadian comedy comes with instructions of how to pick up single women.

An animated vignette. A lively dance of painted wooden dolls that twirl, swing and sway to gay music.

Documentary

1930's found-footage, slowed down with original music.

Incident at Restigouche is a 1984 documentary film by Alanis Obomsawin, chronicling a series of two raids on the Listuguj Mi'gmaq First Nation (Restigouche) by the Sûreté du Québec in 1981, as part of the efforts of the Quebec government to impose new restrictions on Native salmon fishermen. Incident at Restigouche delves into the history behind the Quebec Provincial Police (QPP) raids on the Restigouche Reserve on June 11 and 20, 1981. The Quebec government had decided to restrict fishing, resulting in anger among the Micmac Indians as salmon was traditionally an important source of food and income. Using a combination of documents, news clips, photographs and interviews, this powerful film provides an in-depth investigation into the history-making raids that put justice on trial.

This documentary produced for TV follows a project consisting in remaking the journey of discoveries in the footsteps of Cartier's book. Sailors, some from Saint-Malo, others from the river, were entrusted with the care of navigation.

A topsy-turvy world.

During an improvised journey, which takes the route of memory and reflection, a man is confronted with the precariousness of existence.

While at her grandmother's house, a ten-year-old girl finds a coat in the closet. As she inspects it, she is suddenly taken back in time.

In this short documentary, five black women talk about their lives in rural and urban Canada between the 1920s and 1950s. What emerges is a unique history of Canada’s black people and the legacy of their community elders. Produced by the NFB’s iconic Studio D.

Produced in 1988, this feature documentary presents a living history of Quebec's last 40 years as seen through the eyes of one couple. Pauline Julien and Gérald Godin, two Quebec artists, share their perspectives on the events that have marked Quebec's evolution. Julien, a singer, and Godin, a poet, express their love and passion for the province (and each other) while providing a unique take on the Quebec nationalist movement.

This short animation uses appliqué and embroidered tapestries to recall a young girl's happy summers spent sailing with her family off the coast of British Columbia. Each tapestry, meticulously stitched by hand with brightly coloured yarns, evokes the memory of leisurely days at sea, drifting among the islands.

The history of nuns mirrors the history of all women -- in what we are taught about the past, women are almost invisible. Although today's one million nuns outnumber priests two to one, they must struggle to be heard by the all-male Roman Catholic hierarchy from which they are excluded. Behind the Veil: Nuns is the first film ever to record from a global perspective the turbulent history and remarkable achievements of women in religion, from pre-Christian Celtic communities to the radical sisters of the 1980s. Contemporary nuns of strength, dignity and commitment speak of their lives and of their predecessors.

Shattered Dreams is a powerful and emotional exploration of the experiences of a family forced to deal with the tragedy of schizophrenia in a loved one; not once, but twice. The Martini family of Calgary lived through the turmoil of losing their youngest son Ben to schizophrenia and eventually suicide, only to discover six years later that a second son, Liv, has developed the disease. Clem Martini, a third brother, narrates the film, sharing with us his family's journey through a world of confusion, guilt, loss and ultimately, hope.

Filmmaker Bonnie Sherr Klein and former stripper Lindalee Tracy explore the pornography industry by visiting strip clubs, peep shows, and adult film sets while interviewing performers, sex workers, critics, and feminist writers. Through these encounters, the documentary examines the production, economics, and cultural debates surrounding pornography.

This amusing short animation tells of a polite and timid young minister with a major shortcoming: he just cannot bring himself to say goodbye, and this causes him great grief and considerable consternation. On the first day of his vacation to visit friends, Melpomenus somehow stays and stays until, on the last day of his holiday, he finally departs in an unexpected way. Based on the Stephen Leacock short story, the film is set to toe-tapping ragtime music.

A penetrating look at how difficult it is for the northern countries--Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark--to remain neutral, caught as they are between the two superpowers. All but Canada were neutral before World War II. Today, only Sweden has not joined a military alliance, but with American and Soviet military forces in the northern seas, even its lone neutrality is at risk. Archival footage from the two world wars, animated maps, and interviews illuminate the historical shaping of each country's stance on neutrality and approach to its own defense, and how these positions work for and against the countries. The film's thesis is that a non-aligned north is the key to separating the superpowers and attaining world peace.

A vignette exploring the depths of the Arctic Ocean.