Our Northern Neighbour

This short film focuses on the period between World War I and World War II when France was struck by riots, strikes and economic stress. During the war that followed there was again internal dissension, between those supporting the Fighting French and those supporting the Vichy government. With the end of the war, however, France put itself on the road to recovery, rebuilding its strength on more solid foundations.

This animated short from Norman McLaren features a human skull cautioning Canadians to “keep their mouths shut” in an effort to end gossiping during World War II.

Warning: This film contains flashing images and stroboscopic sequences

This short newsreel highlights the battles faced by both Axis and Ally powers over the minds of the world through propaganda and information. Part of the World in Action series, this film includes footage of Winston Churchill, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler.

This short film looks at the plans made at Dumbarton Oaks in 1945 for a renewed international organization devoted to world peace - the United Nations.

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.

This short film from WWII focuses on the increasingly important roles women occupy on the various war fronts. In England, their more active jobs include ferrying planes from factory to airfield and operating anti-aircraft guns. In Russia, they are fighting on the front lines as well as acting as parachute nurses, army doctors and technicians. In Canada women have joined active service auxiliaries, and thousands labour day and night in factories turning out the tools of war. From the Canada Carries On series.

With the distance between Canada and Russia, China and India cut by high-speed planes, new international links are being forged. In this Pacific world, British Columbia is a unit of growing importance. In a brief survey of the province, this film covers the people, natural resources, industries, and some of the social problems of British Columbia - specifically the imprisonment of Japanese citizens and brief references to the lives of Chinese and Indian migrants. Located on the Pacific Coast, it is the jumping-off place for planes bound for East Asia, and a vital link between the rest of Canada and her neighbours across the Pacific.

Tom Radford's documentary chronicles the life of Chester Ronning, best remembered for his close and longstanding relationship with China. Over the course of his life, Ronning worked as a cowboy, ambassador, college president, missionary and a member of the Alberta legislature. But throughout all of his careers, his lifelong ambition was to explain China to the western world. His story is a rare example of the meeting of East and West in a compassionate, remarkable man.

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.

High Wire examines the reasons that Canada declined to take part in the 2003 US-led military mission in Iraq, shining a spotlight on the diplomatic tug of war that took place behind the scenes with our neighbours to the south, who have often adopted an interventionist foreign policy to serve their own economic and geopolitical interests. Canada’s historic refusal could have had disastrous consequences, but a number of key players and other analysts remind us of the terrible price we pay when diplomacy fails.

A WWII film about children evacuated from Britain and sent to Canada for their safety. The film begins in England with children seeking shelter as anti-aircraft guns roar outside. On their arrival in Canada, they are thrilled by the brightly lit cities, powerful Canadian trains, hot dogs and ice cream. They find, too, that instead of becoming Mounties or cowboys, they have to go to school. The closing sequence shows them learning to ski and skate and preparing for Christmas in their new homes.