The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is a federal cultural agency within the portfolio of the Canadian Heritage Department. Initially known as the National Film Commission, it was created by an act of Parliament in 1939. Its mandate, as set forth in the National Film Act, 1950, is “to produce and distribute and to promote the production and distribution of films designed to interpret Canada to Canadians and to other nations.”
Animation • 2019 • 15 minutes
When an extraordinary new resident – Balakrishna, an Indian elephant – arrived in the town of East River, Nova Scotia, in 1967, no one was more in awe of the creature than young Winton Cook, who became inseparable from his mammoth new friend. Using painterly animati...
Directed by Howie Shia • Animation • 2015 • 7 minutes
A modern adaptation of the myth of Hercules, BAM tells the story of a young boxer struggling to negotiate between his shy, bookish nature and a divinely violent temper. Where does this rage come from? Is it psychological or environmental - or...
Directed by Hart Snider • Animation • 2011 • 5 minutes
In 1983, nine-year-old Hart attends Jewish summer camp for the first time, while in a nearby Alberta town a social studies teacher makes headlines after it's discovered he's been teaching anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. In the aftermath,...
Directed by Theodore Ushev • Animation • 2014 • 2 minutes
A sharp knife cuts the hand of filmmaker Theodore Ushev. A thin stream of his blood comes to life on a white page.All over the world, idealist revolutionaries shed their blood to denounce injustices. Yet blood is also the very symbol of l...
Directed by Marv Newland • Animation • 2011 • 7 minutes
CMYK is a dizzying celebration of sound, colour and movement. Director Marv Newland and animator Kunal Sen meticulously assembled multitudes of CMYK symbols, pulled off flaps of common printed materials like cereal boxes. Freed from their w...
Directed by Theodore Ushev • Animation • 2012 • 7 minutes
Third part of a trilogy on the relationship between art and power, Gloria Victoria is the work of a gifted filmmaker and visual artist, a virtuoso of collage and recycling that summons surrealism as much as Dracula, Cubists of the horror ...
Animation • 2019 • 5 minutes
In the voiceover for this animated short, a young woman attempts to describe herself, casting her life in the ideal light that society expects. The film’s imagery, however, tells a different story, poignantly illustrating the intense anxiety that comes with the quest...
Directed by Michelle Kranot & Uri Kranot • Animation • 2013 • 14 minutes
Searchlights sweep the silent towers. Deep inside one of the buildings, a hand extends through a pipe and appears in a neighbouring apartment, where Solomon is struggling to fix the plumbing. He stares at the hand, then rea...
Directed by Noémie Marsily & Carl Roosens • Animation • 2016 • 9 minutes
He’s a magician. She’s a firefighter. Isolating themselves from the chaos of a world in turmoil, the two lovers live in a crane basket high in the sky, where they go about their daily business. Their challenge: keep their h...
Directed by Diane Obomsawin • Animation • 2016 • 8 minutes
First love is an intoxicating experience, but with it can come excruciating awkwardness, unrequited emotions, and confusing issues of identity. In her trademark playful style, Quebec cartoonist and animator Diane Obomsawin, a.k.a. Obom, ...
Directed by Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre • Animation • 2014 • 13 minutes
With an ingenious assembly of archival footage and animated sequences, Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre brings us a clever and astute cinephile portrait of Claude Jutra, the director of Mon Oncle Antoine. Continuing the undertaking she...
Directed by Sam Decoste • Animation • 2014 • 7 minutes
Mary & Myself is a story within a story, a meta-narrative about two Chinese Canadian women making their theatrical debut playing "comfort women" in The Vagina Monologues.
Fusing activism and performance, this short animated documentary hono...
Directed by Christopher Auchter • Animation • 2017 • 10 minutes
The Mountain of SGaana spins a magical tale of a young man who is stolen away to the spirit world, and the young woman who rescues him. Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter's dream-like gem brilliantly entwines traditional animation ...
Directed by Koji Yamamura • Animation • 2011 • 13 minutes
Can time be made to stand still? Can it be reversed? Koji Yamamura's Muybridge's Strings is a meditation on this theme, contrasting the worlds of the photographer Eadweard Muybridge-who in 1878 successfully photographed consecutive phases...
Directed by Wanda Nolan • Animation • 2016 • 6 minutes
Mystery of the Secret Room takes viewers on a spellbinding voyage between the real and the imaginary. An inspiring portrait of family, adversity, and resilience, this richly hued animated short tells the tale of 10-year-old Grace, who uses h...
Directed by Nicola Lemay & Janice Nadeau • Animation • 2014 • 12 minutes
"Our planet—inhabited by people with different languages and customs." A friendship unites two little girls from opposing clans in a village where tensions are mounting. The Red Shoes have taken control of one side of the m...
Directed by Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre • Animation • 2016 • 12 minutes
Brilliantly mixing animated sequences and archival footage, Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre paints a touching portrait of virtuoso pianist Oscar Peterson. As with her previous films (McLaren's Negative and Jutra), Saint-Pierre pursues...
Directed by Olga Pärn & Priit Pärn • Animation • 2014 • 16 minutes
Having suffered the loss of their plane, three pilots inexplicably find themselves stranded in the middle of the desert. While following the perilous and unpredictable course that will ultimately lead them home, they fall prey to...
Directed by Sylvie Trouvé • Animation • 2012 • 5 minutes
Reflection is an exploration of Montreal through an abstract lens. Director Sylvie Trouvé examines how reflected images pervade our surroundings, how our senses filter out these ghost images and, finally, how the camera can capture emotion...
Directed by Les Drew • Animation • 1996 • 9 minutes
This animated short is a parody of the Frankenstein story. Dr. Frankenstein creates a monster only to find out that his creation is too shy to go out and frighten anyone. The good doctor and his malevolent assistant Trevor try to find ways of h...
Directed by Chris Landreth • Animation • 2013 • 11 minutes
In the middle of a crowded bar, Charles finds himself feeling increasingly desperate. The cause of his misery is an old friend he's just run into; his old friend... you know... what's-his-name...Directed by Chris Landreth, the filmmaker ...
Directed by Randall Lloyd Okita • Animation • 2014 • 10 minutes
The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer is a visually haunting animated short film about two brothers who share the scars, though not the memories, of an untold history that has driven them to existential extremes. Combining high-speed c...
