Having viewed over 8,000 films, Albert Ohayon is our resident collections expert. He studied film production and journalism at Concordia University in Montreal and has been working at the National Film Board since 1984.
Family offers a candid look at CBC Radio in action and the unique cast of characters who make up Canada's coast-to-coast radio family. The film brings home the enormous complexity of producing across six time zones, with the mandate to deliver quality programs, often live, throughout the country. Accomplished filmmaker Donald Brittain was able to capture critical moments of live radio in progress and documents the history and development of CBC Radio.
In this animated short, Richard Condie offers up a history lesson about one of the most sensational get-rich-quick schemes that took place in France over 200 years ago. With economist John Law at the helm, the plan was to open a bank and exchange bank notes for gold at wildly inflated share prices to mask the fact that the country's gold had been depleted in the building of Louis XIV's palace. When the inevitable rush to cash in the notes takes place, poor John Law is left broke and broken-hearted.
For more background info on this film, visit the NFB.ca blog.
This short documentary is a portrait of Frederick Varley, Canadian painter and member of the Group of Seven. In the film, Varley returns to his studio in Toronto after a sketching trip. The camera moves about the studio selecting examples of his canvases and watches him as he begins a new painting.
Film animation and a knowledge of outer space bring to the screen this spectacular, awe-inspiring view of our solar system. Staggering distances are eliminated through the art of film: before our eyes is displayed the wonder of the universe. Moon, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Venus, Earth and all the other satellites and lesser matter in space are seen in amazing detail and perspective in their eternal orbits around the sun.
This feature documentary follows one of the greatest Canadian baseball players of all time, Ferguson Jenkins, through the 1972-1973 season. From the hope and innocence of spring training to the dog days of an August slump, the camera gets up close and personal at the home plate and records the intimate chatter on the mound, in the dugout and in the locker room. It provides a glimpse into the rewards and pressures of sports stardom and the easy camaraderie of the quintessential summer sport.