A City Is

This visual love letter crafted by filmmaker Luc Bourdon uses clips from 120 NFB films to pay tribute to the city of Montreal in the '50s and '60s, with hat tips to its famous figures, places and residents.

In this short film, a collection of images create a colourful collage depicting the construction and opening of Montreal's Victoria Bridge. Considered an engineering marvel at the time, it was the first bridge to span the St. Lawrence River, connecting Montreal to the South Shore by rail.

This short film served as an invitation to the World's Fair that was held in Montreal in 1967. It was largely considered to be the most successful World's Fair of the 20th century with over 50 million visitors. The film presents impressions of the event and of Montreal at its liveliest and most exciting moment in history.

This short film is a portrait of Montreal as seen from a local radio station's traffic helicopter. Freeways, interchanges, bridges and downtown arteries are laid out in miniature. A seething, teeming spectacle, this film presents a unique view of the city with comments by the traffic guide, Len Rowcliffe.

In a city the size of Montreal with thousands and thousands of motorized vehicles, traffic problems are difficult to solve. Here is a panorama of such problems. This film includes an interview with Mayor Jean Drapeau, when Montreal was still the metropolis of Canada.

This short documentary profiles the idyllic landscapes of Parc Lafontaine. Set to an original song, the film follows a mother who brings her son to the park, where he plays, swings, and watches the ducks and gondolas glide on the pond. As an adult, he wanders through the park with his sweetheart. The song closes sadly, for his sweetheart leaves him. The passing gondola seems to bear his love away forever, but the final scenes suggest a happy ending.

This short documentary depicts Christmas time in Montreal. The milling crowds, department store Santas, Brink's messengers, kindergarten angels and boisterous nightclubs all combine to make a vivid portrait of the holidays.

This feature documentary is a fascinating and spirited portrait of the life and times of the legendary Quebec politician and four-time mayor of Montreal Camillien Houde. Using rare archival footage and interviews with ex-colleagues, aides and friends, the film presents a comprehensive profile of this incredible, and, to some, infamous, man.

This documentary is a portrait of Point St. Charles, one of Montreal’s notoriously bleak neighbourhoods. Many of the residents are English-speaking and of Irish origin; many of them are also on welfare. Considered to be one of the toughest districts in all of Canada, Point St. Charles is poor in terms of community facilities, but still full of rich contrasts and high spirits – that is, most of the time.

This feature documentary studies one of the city’s most visible yet most anonymous character: the taxi driver. Filmed by day and night, the film offers an entertaining and sometimes comical look at the drivers, fleet operators and dispatchers who are expected to deliver passengers, parcels… and even babies.

In this experimental animated short, Ryan Larkin (Walking) creates a series of figures who move across the screen and disappear into a hole. Eventually, the hole metamorphoses into a bridge, on top of which stands the young man from whom the others figures originated.