Canada at War, Part 1: Dusk

The NFB’s 1st Academy-Award winning film. It presents the strategy of the Battle of Britain, showing with penetrating clarity the relationships between the various forces made up the island's defenses. Here is the Royal Air Force in its epic battle with the Luftwaffe, the Navy in its stubborn fight against the raiders of sea and sky, the coastal defenses, the mechanized cavalry, the merchant seamen and behind them all, Britain's tough, unbending civilian army.

Part one of a 3-part series, Canada Remembers, Turning the Tide documents the years between the outbreak of WWII in September 1939 and June 1944. A compilation of modern day interviews interspersed with photographs and footage from the war, this documentary covers landmark events such as the Battle of Britain, the raid on Dieppe, the landing in Sicily and the battle for Ortona. It focuses on both the Canadian soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought in the war and the women who became part of the war effort, either by enlisting or by going to work in the factories and shipyards.

This short documentary about the Canadian seamen who manned Canada's eastern ports during WWII is the first film in the Canada Carries On series. The film depicts the work of the Royal Canadian marines who accompanied convoys of military supplies to the Allied Forces and those who remained on the eastern coast to defend against the Germans.

The NFB's 2nd Oscar®-nominated film.

This short film examines the Japan that emerged at the beginning of the 1900s and was firmly established as an industrialized nation by the outbreak of World War II. Facing the greatest threat in their history, the democracies of the Pacific took careful stock of this new Japan and its strength, and erected a vast system of defence across the world's greatest ocean.

This feature documentary examines its own genre, which has often been called Canada's national art form. Released in the year of the NFB's 75th birthday, Shameless Propaganda is filmmaker Robert Lower's take on the boldest and most compelling propaganda effort in our history (1939-1945), in which founding NFB Commissioner John Grierson saw the documentary as a "hammer to shape society". All 500 of the films produced by the NFB until 1945 are distilled here for the essence of their message to Canadians. Using only these films and still photos from that era, Lower recreates the picture of Canada they gave us and looks in it for the Canada we know today. What he finds is by turns enlightening, entertaining, and unexpectedly disturbing.

From the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, Mackenzie King tried to avoid conscription. Most English Canadians thought young men should be sent to fight, while most French Canadians vehemently disagreed. This same division had nearly torn the country apart during the First World War. King had to make a decision in the final year of the war. This docudrama combines archival footage with excerpts from The King Chronicles, a dramatic series written and directed by Donald Brittain.

Some scenes contain graphic language.

This short documentary focuses on Newfoundland's role in WWII. Due to its geographical position, Newfoundland became a central point of activity during the war, housing military air bases and becoming the link between the Allied forces and Europe. In stark contrast with the Depression in the 1930s, this film highlights Newfoundland's opportunities for economic growth during, and after, the war. Part of the Canada Carries On series.

This documentary looks at the events of June 6, 1944, when a combined force of American, British and Canadian troops landed on the beaches of Normandy. The Allied invasion of occupied France was a turning point in the war against Hitler's Germany. From a tactical view, Canada's role was limited; strategically, it was pivotal. Part of the 3-part series The Valour and the Horror.

The filmmaker did not suspect that meeting a philosopher would have such a profound effect. It compelled her to shed light on the exceptional life of Raymond Klibansky, his uncommon destiny and his path to humanity. As a German Jewish philosopher of action, he lived in times of upheaval, war and hate. As a young man, he moved in the circles of Karl Jaspers, Erwin Panofsky, Marianne Weber, Ernst Cassirer and Albert Enstein. Early in his career, he made his mark as a historian of ideas and a philosopher, and his work was known around the world. Then came the Nazi lie, which he condemned and, better yet, fought. In the prime of his life, he was Chief Intelligence Officer in the British Secret Service during World War Two. He moved to Montreal in 1946, where he has continued to promote tolerance and fight for freedom on all fronts.

In this feature documentary, Oscar®-nominated filmmaker Shuibo Wang (Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square) aims his camera at the astonishing story of 21 American soldiers who opted to stay in China after the Korean War ended in 1954. Back home in the United States, McCarthyism was at its height and many Americans believed these men were brainwashed by Chinese communists. But what really happened? Using never-before-seen footage from the Chinese camps and interviews with former PoWs and their families, They Chose China tells the fascinating stories of these forgotten American dissidents.

Hibakusha is the Japanese word for the survivors of the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This powerful and moving documentary focuses on a few of the eighty hibakusha who journeyed from Japan to New York in June, 1982, to take part in peace demonstrations held to coincide with the Second United Nations Special Session on Disarmament. They came to urge the nations of the world to prevent nuclear war. Instead of concentrating on the physical suffering of the victims, the film reveals the mental anguish of the hibakusha, who are still haunted by nightmares.