Une mémoire oubliée... une génération sacrifiée

This short documentary is a portrait of Martine Duviella, whose parents were forced to flee Haiti during the Duvalier regime. Here, Duviella recounts the story of her activist father and through him seeks to retrieve the forgotten past of a generation that sacrificed itself trying to free Haiti. In French with English subtitles.

This documentary was made as part of the Tremplin program, with the collaboration of Radio-Canada.

In this feature documentary, a Chilean filmmaker returns to the motherland for the first time in 23 years. Time is passing. A generation of young Chileans has grown up with no knowledge of the facts surrounding the military coup of September 11, 1973. In his suitcase, The Battle of Chile his 3-part cinéma vérité chronicle of the political tensions in Chile in 1973 and of the violent counterrevolution against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. His documentary toured the world but was never seen in Chile. Discreetly, he shows it to his friends and a small group of students. After the screening, the young people are in a state of shock. They have an urgent need to know the truth, for it is they who must build the Chile of tomorrow. In Spanish with English subtitles

In 1937, tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were exterminated by the Dominican army on the basis of anti-black racism. Fast-forward to 2013: the Dominican Republic’s Supreme Court stripped the citizenship of anyone with Haitian parents, retroactive to 1929, rendering more than 200,000 people stateless. Director Michèle Stephenson’s new documentary follows the grassroots campaign of a young attorney named Rosa Iris, as she challenges electoral corruption and fights to protect the right to citizenship for all people.

Celebrate Black Canadian cinema with the NFB. Explore our collection of films from Black filmmakers across Canada.

This historical drama tells the story of Qin Shihuang, who unified China’s vast territory and declared himself emperor in 221 B.C. During his reign, he introduced sweeping reforms, built a vast network of roads and connected the Great Wall of China. From the grandiose inner sanctum of Emperor Qin's royal palace, to fierce battles with feudal kings, this film re-creates the glory and the terror of the Qin Dynasty, including footage of Qin's life-sized terra cotta army, constructed 2,200 years ago for his tomb. The First Emperor of China was shot entirely in IMAX.

In 1992 a young Iranian student hanged himself on the outskirts of a small Ontario town. Having escaped the Ayatollah's regime and found a new home in Canada, he could not escape his past. In this film, Masoud Raouf documents the experiences of Iranian-Canadians - former political prisoners like himself - who were active in the Iranian democratic movement and continue to struggle with the past.

For more background information about this film, please visit the NFB.ca blog.

In this feature-length documentary, filmmaker Patricio Henriquez seeks to untangle the web of lies surrounding the Chilean navy's training vessel, the Esmeralda. Heralded as a symbol of national pride, a dark secret lies behind the facade of the ship the Chileans call The White Lady: Following the 1973 coup d'état, it was used as a floating prison. Thirty years later, the victims of the dictatorship are demanding justice. The Dark Side of the White Lady is a fascinating journey to uncover the truth.

Filmed in the Indian Himalayas and in Canada, A Song for Tibet tells the dramatic story of the efforts by Tibetans in exile, including the Dalai Lama, to save their homeland and preserve their heritage against overwhelming odds. Since the invasion of their territory by China in the late 1950s, Tibetans have been struggling for cultural and political survival.

The NFB's 63rd Oscar®-nominated film.

Shui-Bo Wang's feature documentary is a visual autobiography of an artist who grew up in China during the historic upheavals of the ‘60s, '70s and '80s. A rich collage of original artwork and family and archival photos presents a personal perspective on the turbulent Cultural Revolution and the years that followed. For Shui-Bo Wang and others of his generation, Tiananmen Square was the central symbol of the new China – a society to be based on equality and cooperation. This animated documentary artfully traces Shui-Bo's roots and his own life journey as he struggles to sort through ideology and arrive at truth.

Under the guise of a pretty fairy tale, this animated short makes a strong political statement. Animated paper cut-outs enact a drama in which a dictator imposes his delusions on his unfortunate subjects. The humour is black and, despite the absence of dialogue, the message is crystal clear.

In this documentary, Paul Cowan delivers unprecedented access to the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping, and the determined and often desperate manoeuvres to avert another Rwandan disaster, this time in the Democratic Republic of Congo (the DRC). The film cuts back and forth between the United Nations headquarters in New York and events on the ground in the DRC. We are with the peacekeepers in the 'Crisis Room' as they balance the risk of loss of life on the ground with the enormous sums of money required from uncertain donor countries. We are with UN troops as the northeast Congo erupts and the future of the DRC, if not all of central Africa, hangs in the balance. As Secretary General Kofi Annan tells the General Assembly at the conclusion of The Peacekeepers: "History is a harsh judge. The world will not forgive us if we do nothing." Whether the world's peacekeeper did enough remains to be seen.

A brief acquaintance with the president of Chile before his assassination in September, 1973. In 1972, several miners from Québec went to Chile to observe mining operations there. They also met with the President of the Republic. Salvador Allende explains, publicly at a meeting of icampanneros r, as well as in a conference with the visitors, the revolutionary socio-economic reforms he envisages for his country, which include nationalization of the copper industry. René Lévesque, Théo Gagné and Joseph Gosselin appear in the film. (A film for all students of political change. With English subtitles).