EXPO 67 Mission Impossible

Ville-Marie

January 1965 •French

Today it is the city of Montreal, but 3 centuries ago the tiny band of missionary founders called it Ville-Marie, the holy city of Mary. This film goes back to its beginning and those who felt called to plant an oasis of Christianity in the North American wilderness. In an imaginative, at times almost surrealistic, way the film recalls the highborn company from France, and shows what survives of Ville-Marie in the Montreal of today.

La plaque tournante

December 2024 •French

Seattle’s Forgotten World’s Fair: The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition

October 2009 •English

In 1909, looking to shed its rough frontier past, the young city of Seattle decided to host a World’s Fair in the same grand spirit as those that preceded it in Chicago and St. Louis. Seattle welcomed the world to the University of Washington campus where visitors walked among palaces, saw new inventions that would change the world, and mined for mirth on the Paystreak - AYP’s Midway. Featuring thousands of historical images, rare archival footage, and contemporary interviews, the film explores the fair’s historical reverberations.

Karihwanoron: Precious Things

April 2017 •English

Yagorihwanirats, a Mohawk child from Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in Quebec, attends a unique and special school: Karihwanoron. It is a Mohawk immersion program that teaches Mohawk language, culture and philosophy. Yagorihwanirats is so excited to go to school that she never wants to miss a day – even if she is sick.

Man Belongs to the Earth

May 1974 •English

Made for screening at the U.S. Pavilion at the 1974 World's Fair in Spokane Washington, USA, which had a Native-American environmental theme, MAN BELONGS TO THE EARTH depicts the history of air, water, and earth pollution, and how environmentalists are trying to solve these problems using various technologies.

Breaking Point: Canada/Quebec - The 1995 Referendum

October 2005 •French

BREAKING POINT brings viewers back to those tense, critical moments when Canada's future as a country was at stake.

The Rise and Fall of English Montreal

August 1993 •English

In the past 20 years, some 300,000 English-speaking people have left Montréal, convinced they had no future in a Québec that had become increasingly French, increasingly nationalistic. In this video we meet some of the people who are moving away and recall the days, in the last century, when there were more English-speaking people than French in Montréal. The video poses a controversial question: Will the city, with its youth leaving in great numbers, become a community of the elderly, unable to renew itself?

The Time of the Tar Sands

August 1975 •English

A promotional video produced by the Alberta government in 1975, "The time of the tar sands", featuring Gordon Pinsent. credit: Archives of Alberta.

My Enemy, My Brother

April 2017 •English

The eight-year Iran-Iraq War was one of the most brutal conflicts to devastate the region in the 20th century. Zahed was 13 years old when he enrolled in the Iranian army. Najah was 18 when he was conscripted into the Iraqi army, and he fought against Zahed in the Battle of Khorramshahr. Fast forward 25 years, a chance encounter in Vancouver between these two former enemies turns into a deep and mutually supportive friendship. Expanded from the 2015 short film by the same name.

The World's Greatest Fair

July 2004 •English

An intimate and unique look at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis told in the words of those who were there to experience it firsthand. With a wide range of events and attractions that included the first ever Olympic games on American soil, the first Ferris wheel, and a special appearance by the legendary Geronimo, this remarkable and extravagant fair would mark the beginning to what President Theodore Roosevelt would refer to as "the American century."

Qipisa

February 2017 •Inuktitut

The director goes back to her roots in Pangnirtung, amongst her family and community. It leads her to another journey: to Qipisa, the outpost camp from where they were uprooted.

To the Fair!

June 1964 •English

Promotional film extolling the wonders to be seen at the New York World's Fair.

The Tall Ships in Canada

July 2000 •English

Captures the highlights of the weekend in July of 2000 when 80 of the world's tall ships arrived in Halifax Harbour before the start of the race back across the Atlantic Ocean for a trans-Atlantic race.

The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights

September 2009 •English

In 2007 the legendary American duo White Stripes toured Canada. Besides playing the usual venues they challenged themselves and played in buses, cafés and for Indian tribal elders. Music video director Emmett Malloy followed the band and managed to capture both the special tour, extraordinary concert versions of the band's minimalist, raw, blues-inspired rock songs and the special relationship between the extroverted Jack White and the introspective Meg White - a formerly married couple who for a long time claimed to be siblings. The film makes striking use of the band's concert colors: red, white and black.

Brussels Loops

April 1958 •English

A collection of twenty short films, averaging 2-3 minutes, by various filmmakers depicting American life, intended to be shown in a continuous loop at the American Pavilion of the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. Some releases of the film include ten extra minutes of rough cuts.

Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the 70's Generation

September 1999 •English

Canadian director Catherine Annau's debut work is a documentary about the legacy of Pierre Trudeau, the long-running Prime Minister of Canada, who governed during the 1970s. The film focuses particularly on Trudeau's goal of creating a thoroughly bilingual nation. Annau interviews eight people in their mid-30s on both sides of the linguistic divide. One tells of her life growing up in a community of hard-core Quebec separatists, while another, a yuppie from Toronto, recalls believing as a child that people in Montreal got drunk and had sex all day long. Annau has all of the interviewees discuss how Trudeau's policies affected their lives and their perceptions of the other side, in this issue that strikes to the heart of Canada's national identity.

Foster Child

March 1987 •English

Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.

Writing the Land

December 2007 •English

In this short documentary, a Musqueam elder rediscovers his Native language and traditions in the city of Vancouver, in the vicinity of which the Musqueam people have lived for thousands of years. Writing the Land captures the ever-changing nature of a modern city - the glass and steel towers cut against the sky, grass, trees and a sudden flash of birds in flight and the enduring power of language to shape perception and create memory.

A Return to Memory

October 2024 •English

When Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it.

The Whale and the Raven

September 2019 •English

Director Mirjam Leuze’s The Whale and The Raven illuminates the many issues that have drawn whale researchers, the Gitga’at First Nation, and the Government of British Columbia into a complex conflict. As the people in the Great Bear Rainforest struggle to protect their territory against the pressure and promise of the gas industry, caught in between are the countless beings that call this place home.