National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; French: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and alternative dramas. In total, the NFB has produced over 13,000 productions since its inception,[1] which have won over 5,000 awards.[2] The NFB reports to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It has bilingual production programs and branches in English and French, including multicultural-related documentaries.
"National Film Board" redirects here. For the Argentine organization, see National Film Board of Argentina.Abbreviation
NFB
Federal agency
Film and interactive media producer and distributor
English, French
Documentary[edit]
Cinéma vérité and Direct Cinema[edit]
In the post-war era, the NFB became a pioneer in new developments in documentary film. The NFB played a key role in both the cinéma vérité and direct cinema movements, working on technical innovations to make its 16 mm synchronized sound equipment more light-weight and portable—most notably the "Sprocketape" portable sound recorder invented for the film board by Ches Beachell in 1955. Influenced by the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, the NFB's Studio B production unit experimented with cinema verite in its 1958 Candid Eye series. Candid Eye along with such NFB French-language films as Les Raquetteurs (1958) have been credited as helping to inspire the cinéma vérité documentary movement. Other key cinéma vérité films during this period included Lonely Boy (1961) and Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen (1965).[118]
Interactive[edit]
Works[edit]
As of March 2013, the NFB devotes one quarter of its production budget to interactive media, including web documentaries.[130][131] The NFB is a pioneer in interactive web documentaries, helping to position Canada as a major player in digital storytelling, according to transmedia creator Anita Ondine Smith,[132] as well as Shari Frilot, programmer for Sundance Film Festival's New Frontier program for digital media.[133]
Welcome to Pine Point received two Webby Awards while Out My Window, an interactive project from the NFB's Highrise project, won the IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling and an International Digital Emmy Award.[134]
Rob McLaughlin is the executive producer responsible for NFB English-language digital content and strategy, based in the Woodward's Building in Vancouver. Jeremy Mendes is an interactive artist producing English-language interactive works for the NFB, whose projects include a collaboration with Leanne Allison (Being Caribou, Finding Farley) on the webdoc Bear 71.[135]
Awards[edit]
Film and television awards[edit]
Over the years, the NFB has been internationally recognized with more than 5000 film awards.[193][194] In 2009, Norman McLaren's Neighbours was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme, listing the most significant documentary heritage collections in the world.[195]
Controversy[edit]
In addition to Neighbours, other NFB productions have been the source of controversy, including two NFB productions broadcast on CBC Television that criticized the role of Canadians in wartime led to questions in the Senate of Canada.
In the early 1970s, two Quebec political documentaries, Arcand's On est au coton and Gilles Groulx's 24 heures ou plus, were initially withheld from release by the NFB due to controversial content.[247]
The Kid Who Couldn't Miss (1982) cast doubt on the accomplishments of Canadian World War I flying ace Billy Bishop, sparking widespread outrage, including complaints in the Senate subcommittee on Veterans' Affairs.[248]
A decade later, The Valour and the Horror outraged some when it suggested that there was incompetence on the part of Canadian military command, and that Canadian soldiers had committed unprosecuted war crimes against German soldiers. The series became the subject of an inquiry by the Senate.
Other controversial productions included the 1981 film Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography, a 1981 Studio D documentary critiquing pornography that was itself banned in the province of Ontario on the basis of pornographic content.[249] Released the following year, If You Love This Planet, winner of the Academy Award for best documentary short subject, was labelled foreign propaganda under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 in the United States.[250]
NFB on TV[edit]
The NFB is a minority owner of the Canadian digital television channel Documentary Channel. The NFB-branded series Retrovision aired on VisionTV along with the French-language Carnets ONF series on APTN. Moreover, in 1997, the American cable channel Cartoon Network created a weekly 30-minute show called O Canada, which specifically showcased a compilation of NFB-produced works; the segment was later discontinued in favour of Adult Swim.[251]
