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CanLit (38)

  1. Available in English Options
5 years old
18 years old
  • Alden Nowlan: An Introduction
    Alden Nowlan: An Introduction
    Jon Pedersen 1984 28 min
    This short documentary introduces us to Alden Nowlan, winner of Canada’s 1967 Governor General’s Award for poetry. His empathy for ordinary people was evident in his work as a poet, journalist, short-story writer, novelist and playwright. Nowlan’s writing is admired far beyond his native Maritimes, but he never forgot his roots, which he drew on for inspiration. This film, shot just before his death in 1983, records him reminiscing and reading from his work.
  • Bully Dance
    Bully Dance
    Janet Perlman 2000 10 min
    This short animated film examines the roles of peer pressure, accountability and power struggles in bullying – a pervasive phenomenon.

    When a bully picks on a smaller member of his group, the whole community becomes involved. The bully, they learn, is himself a victim at home.
  • The Big Snit
    The Big Snit
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    Richard Condie 1985 9 min
    This wonderful wacky animation film looks at two simultaneous conflicts, a macrocosm of global nuclear war and a microcosm of a domestic quarrel, and how each conflict is resolved. Filled with warmth and unexpectedly off-the-wall humour, the film leaves it to viewers to decide which Snit has really been the Big One.

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  • The Company of Strangers
    The Company of Strangers
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    Cynthia Scott 1990 1 h 40 min
    In this feature film, 7 elderly women find themselves stranded when their bus breaks down in the wilderness. With only their wits, memories and some roasted frogs' legs to sustain them, this remarkable group of strangers share their life stories and turn a potential crisis into a magical time of humour, spirit and camaraderie. Featuring non-professional actors and unscripted dialogue, this film dissolves the barrier between fiction and reality, weaving a heart-warming tale of friendship and courage.
  • Christopher Changes His Name
    Christopher Changes His Name
    Cilia Sawadogo 2000 6 min
    This animated short for children tells the story of Christopher, a little boy who didn't want to be called Christopher anymore. Such a common name! When Aunty Gail from Trinidad tells him a story about a Tiger, Christopher changes his name to Tiger. But then he finds a better name. When he has trouble cashing a birthday cheque, he realizes maybe he should stick with his original name... or maybe not?

    Part of the Talespinners collection, which uses vibrant animation to bring popular children’s stories from a wide range of cultural communities to the screen.
  • Darts in the Dark: An Introduction to W.O. Mitchell
    Darts in the Dark: An Introduction to W.O. Mitchell
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    Robert Duncan 1980 18 min
    Canadian author, humorist and storyteller W.O. Mitchell talks about his career as a writer and performer. Known for his witty radio and television appearances, Mitchell shows a more serious side as he reveals his personal views on writing and on the meaning of life and death. Passages from Who Has Seen the Wind and the Jake and the Kid stories reflect the many facets of this self-proclaimed "folksy foothills philosopher" from the Prairies.
  • Dinner for Two
    Dinner for Two
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    Janet Perlman 1996 7 min
    When it comes to conflict, even chameleons won't change! Peace in the rain forest is disrupted when two chameleons literally get stuck in a conflict, with catastrophic results. Relationships are severed, opportunities are lost, innocent bystanders are harmed and violence seems imminent. Luckily for the lizards, a frog observing the fracas turns into exactly what they need - no, not a prince - a mediator.

    Dinner for Two tackles conflict in a lively, humorous and provocative way. It shows that amidst the chaos that differences create, there are still paths to reconciliation.

  • Edith Butler - Daughter of the Wind and Acadie
    Edith Butler - Daughter of the Wind and Acadie
    Monique LeBlanc 2009 5 min
    Combining interviews with teachers, admirers and musical peers, as well as footage from 40 years of performing, director Monique Leblanc's film captures singer/songwriter Édith Butler's moving artistry. A master show woman, Édith is always in flight – singing, playing, her long hair flying, with an epic grin on her face, covering everything from the softest lament to the most rollicking infectious footstomper. This film was produced for the 2009 Governor General's Performing Arts Award.
  • The End of Pinky
    The End of Pinky
    Claire Blanchet 2013 8 min
    This short animation adapted from a short story by Heather O’Neill, who also narrates the film, follows three fallen angels seeking companionship in Montreal’s red-light district. The survivor of traumatic childhood experiences, Johnny is a handsome thief who finds himself drawn to Mia’s fragile beauty. Both have a soft spot for Johnny’s best friend and partner in crime, Pinky. But when one of Pinky’s endearing quirks sets off a tragicomic chain of events, Johnny plots his revenge with methodical detachment. Peopled with characters living on the margins of society, this film casts light on the frailty of human relationships. The film features hand-drawn pencil and pastel animation rendered in stereoscopic 3D.
  • The End of Summer
    The End of Summer
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    Michel Brault 1964 27 min
    Filmed at a summer cottage in the Laurentians north of Montreal, this film penetrates briefly the charmed world of the adolescent. Watching and listening, you sense the bittersweet mood of childhood's end, the poignant awareness that nothing will ever be the same after this summer at the lake. With English subtitles.
  • Finding Farley
    Finding Farley
    Leanne Allison 2009 1 h 2 min
    In this feature documentary, husband-and-wife team Karsten Heuer and Leanne Allison (Being Caribou), along with their 2-year-old son and dog, retrace the literary footsteps of Canadian writer Farley Mowat. They canoe east from Calgary towards the Prairies (the geography of Farley's Born Naked and Owls in the Family) and then traverse the same paths that Mowat took more than 60 years earlier in Never Cry Wolf and People of the Deer. Their epic 5,000 km journey—trekking, sailing, portaging and paddling—ends in the Maritimes, at Mowat's Nova Scotia summer home.
  • Front Lines
    Front Lines
    Claude Guilmain 2008 33 min
    A tribute to the combatants in the First World War, this film traces the conflict through the war diary and private letters of five Canadian soldiers and a nurse. Hearing them, the listener detects between the lines an unspoken horror censored by war and propriety.

    The film mingles war footage, historical photos and readings of excerpts from the diary and letters. The directorial talent of Claude Guilmain breathes life into these 90-year-old documents and accompanying archival images so that we experience the human face and heart of the conflict.

    For the educational sector, five documentary vignettes have been drawn from the film: Nurses at the Front, The Officer's Role, The Life of the Soldier, Faith and Hope and The Trenches, each with further information on its particular subject.
  • The Girl Who Hated Books
    The Girl Who Hated Books
    Jo Meuris 2006 7 min
    This animated short about literacy introduces us to Meena, a young girl who hates books even though her parents love to read. Books are everywhere in Meena's house, in cupboards, drawers and even piled up on the stairs. Still, she refuses to even open one up. But when her cat Max accidentally knocks down a huge stack, pandemonium ensues and nothing is ever the same again.

    Part of the Talespinners collection, which uses vibrant animation to bring popular children’s stories from a wide range of cultural communities to the screen.
  • Hard Light
    Hard Light
    Justin Simms 2012 54 min
    This feature film uses Michael Crummey’s seminal piece of Newfoundland literature to examine cultural change and modern relationships. As in Crummey’s collection of poems and stories, there is a decisive theme of the artist investigating his ancestors to discover himself. Filmmaker Justin Simms offers viewers a timely reflection on compassion, storytelling and identity.
  • How People Got Fire
    How People Got Fire
    Daniel Janke 2008 16 min
    This introspective short animation takes place In the village of Carcross, in the Tagish First Nation. Neighbourhood pillar Grandma Kay tell the local children the tale of how Crow brought fire to people. As the story unfolds, we also meet 12-year-old Tish, an introspective, talented girl who feels drawn to the elder. Here, past and present blend, myth and reality meet, and the metaphor of fire infuses all in a location that lies at the heart of this Native community’s spiritual and cultural memory.
  • The India Trip
    The India Trip
    Bill Davies 1971 49 min
    This documentary is a portrait of modern-day Pondicherry, an ancient city near the southern tip of India. For several centuries an outpost of France, the city is now home to Auroville, a spiritual community growing on its periphery. There, European and North American devotees of Sri Aurobindo, a Bengali poet and mystic, come to live the contemplative life. Their guru is a 94-year-old woman from France. This mecca of sorts is seen through the eyes of Albert Jordan, a professor from Concordia University, in Montreal, who spent a year there with his family in 1971.
  • Jack Kerouac's Road - A Franco-American Odyssey
    Jack Kerouac's Road - A Franco-American Odyssey
    Herménégilde Chiasson 1989 54 min
    Part documentary, part drama, this film presents the life and work of Jack Kerouac, an American writer with Québec roots who became one of the most important spokesmen for his generation. Intercut with archival footage, photographs and interviews, this film takes apart the heroic myth and even returns to the childhood of the author whose life and work contributed greatly to the cultural, sexual and social revolution of the 1960s.
  • John McCrae's War: In Flanders Fields
    John McCrae's War: In Flanders Fields
    Robert Duncan 1998 46 min
    This feature documentary profiles poet John McCrae, from his childhood in Ontario to his years in medicine at McGill University and the WWI battlefields of Belgium, where he cared for wounded soldiers. Generations of schoolchildren have recited McCrae’s iconic poem “In Flanders Fields,” but McCrae and Alexis Helmer—the young man whose death inspired the poem—have faded from memory. This film seeks to revive their stories through a vivid portrait of a great man in Canadian history.
  • The Mystery of Mazo de la Roche
    The Mystery of Mazo de la Roche
    Maya Gallus 2011 52 min
    This feature documentary tells the mysterious story of Canadian author Mazo de la Roche, author of the Jalna novels. Using both dramatic and documentary techniques, the film explores this compelling woman’s uncommon family life and reveals the secrets behind the extraordinary partnership that allowed the Jalna saga to grow into the phenomenon it is today.
  • Mind Me Good Now!
    Mind Me Good Now!
    Chris Cormier  &  Derek Cummings 2005 8 min
    In this animated short 2 children, Tina and Dalby, disobey their mama with almost tragic consequences. Having strayed away from home, they run afoul of a local "cocoya," a wicked spirit that loves to eat little boys! But through Tina's resourcefulness and cunning, the cocoya is vanquished and the children run back to mama's forgiving arms.

    Part of the Talespinners collection, which uses vibrant animation to bring popular children’s stories from a wide range of cultural communities to the screen.
  • My Financial Career
    My Financial Career
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    Gerald Potterton 1962 6 min
    An animated film based on Stephen Leacock's witty account of a young man's first brush with banking. When he tries to make his deposit, he is so intimidated by the institution that nothing he says comes out right.
  • Remembering Maria Chapdelaine
    Remembering Maria Chapdelaine
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    Jean-Claude Labrecque 2015 52 min
    This feature documentary by Jean-Claude Labrecque recounts the bold and astounding enterprise of French filmmaker Julien Duvivier, who shot a film adaptation of Louis Hémon’s classic novel Maria Chapdelaine in Péribonka, a village in Quebec’s Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, in 1934. What was the impact of the original film’s production on the life of the community? What memories remain? What town secrets lie hidden in those memories?

    Tracking our identity and our relationship with the past, Labrecque and his team delve into the boundaries between the fantasy world of film and reality. Drawing on clips from Duvivier’s film, material from archives in France and Quebec, and original footage shot by Labrecque and his team in Péribonka in 2013, the documentary Remembering Maria Chapdelaine is an inquiry into the boundaries between the fantasy world of film and reality.
  • Remembrance Day Virtual Classroom
    Remembrance Day Virtual Classroom
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    Dan Thornhill 2016 24 min
    The National Film Board of Canada, in collaboration with the Canadian War Museum, OHASSTA, and the Royal Canadian Legion present a recitation of John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” to mark the 100-year anniversary of this iconic war poem. One of Canada’s leading film, television and stage actors, R.H. Thomson, will read the poem and moderate the event. Afterwards there is a lively panel discussion, based on your questions, featuring R.H. Thomson, WWI historian Melanie Morin-Pelletier and Master Corporal Martin Rouleau, Medical Technician. This landmark event will underpin the importance of remembrance and explore the relevance of McCrae’s poem in our times.
  • Song of Eskasoni
    Song of Eskasoni
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    Brian Guns 1993 28 min
    Eskasoni is the home of celebrated Mi’kmaq poet Rita Joe. This Cape Breton village is enjoying a revival of Indigenous traditions and spirituality which inspires much of Rita Joe's writing. For twenty years her poetry and her presence have touched thousands with dignity. This video is a celebration of the spiritual pride of the Mi’kmaq as embodied in Rita Joe's writings and her life.
  • September Five at Saint-Henri
    September Five at Saint-Henri
    Hubert Aquin 1962 27 min
    This short film is a series of vignettes of life in Saint-Henri, a Montreal working-class district, on the first day of school. From dawn to midnight, we take in the neighbourhood’s pulse: a mother fussing over children, a father's enforced idleness, teenage boys clowning, young lovers dallying - the unposed quality of daily life.
  • Snow Cat
    Snow Cat
    Sheldon Cohen 1998 22 min
    A grandmother tells her young grandchild the moving tale of a lonely girl and an unforgettable magical cat in this animated short narrated by Oscar®, Emmy and Tony award winner Maureen Stapleton. The film is based on a short story written by Dayal Kaur Khalsa and adapted by two-time Governor General's award recipient Tim Wynne-Jones.
  • Seth's Dominion
    Seth's Dominion
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    Luc Chamberland 2014 42 min
    This short documentary, part animation and part live action, is a portrait of Canadian cartoonist Seth, best known for his Palookaville comic books. Throughout his works, Seth transforms an poignant inner life into observant and witty graphic stories. Incredibly prolific, he produces semi-autobiographical comics, award-winning commercial work, as well as what he calls his “little hobbies.” Here, director Luc Chamberland sheds light on his articulate character, mixing insightful biography with vivid animation in an artful fusion of filmmaking techniques that perfectly captures Seth’s manifold creative universe.
  • Stories Sarah Tells
    Stories Sarah Tells
    Ann Marie Fleming 2013 4 min
    This short film pays tribute to director, screenwriter and actress Sarah Polley. Her latest film, Stories We Tell, a feature length documentary about her family history, premiered at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, then screened to unanimous acclaim at the Telluride Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Sundance Film Festival. It was called “a brilliant film: an enthralling, exquisitely layered masterpiece” by Maclean’s film critic Brian D. Johnson. Here, a whimsical, playful film tells the story of the kinds of stories Polley tells. Using humorous, simple line animation, the film comments on the messiness of life and art.

    Produced by the NFB in co-operation with the National Arts Centre and the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Foundation on the occasion of the 2013 Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.
  • The Song and the Sorrow
    The Song and the Sorrow
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    Millefiore Clarkes 2018 42 min
    The Song and the Sorrow follows Catherine as she journeys to understand her father and face her own struggles with mental illness. Through archival footage and intimate interviews with friends, family members, and musicians who knew and played with Gene—including Anne Murray, Lennie Gallant, and the late Ron Hynes—the film reveals a troubled and loving man who was never at ease with fame or money.
  • The Sweater
    The Sweater
    Sheldon Cohen 1980 10 min
    In this animated short, Roch Carrier recounts the most mortifying moment of his childhood. At a time when all his friends worshipped Maurice "Rocket" Richard and wore his number 9 Canadiens hockey jersey, the boy was mistakenly sent a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey from Eaton's. Unable to convince his mother to send it back, he must face his friends wearing the colours of the opposing team. This short film, based on the book The Hockey Sweater, is an NFB classic that appeals to hockey lovers of all ages.