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Careers & Education (43)

  1. Available in English Options
5 years old
18 years old
  • After the Axe
    After the Axe
    Sturla Gunnarsson 1981 56 min
    This full-length drama depicts the reality of managers getting fired and the emergence of a new industry specialized in handling executive terminations. The film was made with the cooperation of the business community, which helped script some of the scenes and provided authentic locations. The central figure, D.R. "Biff" Wilson, 44, is a composite figure based on extensive conversations with fired executives.
  • As the Crow Flies
    As the Crow Flies
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    Tess Girard 2016 1 h 23 min
    Every summer, the Royal Canadian Air Cadets offers its top cadets the chance to participate in an elite flight-training camp. As the Crow Flies follows a group of these young men and women as they undergo seven weeks of training to get their pilot’s license in an intense program that normally takes six to eight months.
  • Black History Month 2015 Virtual Classroom: The Power of Mentoring, Diversity and Dreaming Big
    Black History Month 2015 Virtual Classroom: The Power of Mentoring, Diversity and Dreaming Big
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    Dan Thornhill 2015 1 h 3 min
    On February 19, 2015, the NFB, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and Heritage Toronto connected students from across Canada with four talented Black professionals for a one-of-a-kind virtual conversation. Streamed live from the Daniels Spectrum auditorium in the multicultural neighbourhood of Regent Park, Toronto, the virtual classroom explored the topic of achieving one’s career goals while giving back to the community. Featuring: TV anchor and three-time Olympian Rosey Edeh; Dr. Catherine Chandler-Crichlow, Executive Director of the Centre of Excellence in Financial Services Education; Layth Gafoor, sports and entertainment lawyer; and Dr. Teela Johnson, resident in family medicine. Discussion moderated by poet, playwright, and professor Dr. George Elliott Clarke. Special performances by Thompson Egbo-Egbo, Shawn Byfield, and Sean Mauricette, a.k.a. Subliminal.
  • Back to Jobs
    Back to Jobs
    1945 9 min
    This short documentary depicts the return of Canadian WWII veterans to civilian life, including those who, because of war injuries or lack of training, require special treatment or courses before taking on jobs. Throughout the program, emphasis is laid on individual adjustment to normal peacetime life and work. Part of the Canada Carries On series.
  • Bevel Up - Drugs, Users and Outreach Nursing
    Bevel Up - Drugs, Users and Outreach Nursing
    Nettie Wild 2007 45 min
    Bevel Up follows street nurses as they reach out to people working in the sex trade, and people who use drugs in the alleys and hotels of Vancouver’s inner city. Most importantly the nurses reflect on the attitudes they bring to their work—attitudes that can make or break their relationships with the people to whom they provide practical, non-judgemental health care on a daily basis.

    The Bevel Up Educational Playlists offer viewers a dynamic way to learn through more than four hours of additional footage, interviews and a Teachers Guide. The interactive resource gives students and instructors in the healthcare field access to the experiences of practitioners who work with people who use drugs in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

    For more information, images, and clips, click here.
  • The Beauty of My People
    The Beauty of My People
    Alan Collins 1977 29 min
    The film centres on Arthur Shilling, an Ojibwa artist from the Rama Reserve on Lake Couchiching, Ontario. Shilling's artistic evolution is traced, as is his move to Toronto and the difficulties he encountered there. Also discussed is the illness that caused Shilling to re-evaluate his artistic goals. Interviews with the artist and others interested in his paintings are juxtaposed with examples of paintings.
  • Brian Macdonald, Virtuoso Eclectic
    Brian Macdonald, Virtuoso Eclectic
    Tim Southam 2008 5 min
    Framed against archival stills from Brian Macdonald's considerable career, this short film is a testimony to the eclecticism and brilliance of Macdonald's creative vision. As a dancer, director, choreographer and teacher, Macdonald has worked with The Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and The National Ballet of Canada, helping to shape the careers of many of the country's most celebrated dancers.
  • The Balgonie Birdman
    The Balgonie Birdman
    Brian Duchscherer 1991 8 min
    A small prairie town has few secrets but in Balgonie, Saskatchewan, Bill Gibson had one. Each night, when most folks were home asleep, Bill was busy in his workshop. You see, Bill had a dream. He was building a flying machine. This short puppet animation tells his story.
  • Chris Hadfield 2016 Virtual Classroom (The Film)
    Chris Hadfield 2016 Virtual Classroom (The Film)
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    Dan Thornhill 2016 31 min
    A Virtual Classroom with the famous singing and tweeting astronaut is the perfect intro to Space School. Don’t miss Chris Hadfield talking about his exciting experiences as the first Canadian in command of the International Space Station. He shares the story of his amazing journey in a wide-ranging discussion covering the fascinating relationship between geology and space exploration and the surprising impacts of space travel on physical and mental fitness.
  • The Colour of Beauty
    The Colour of Beauty
    Elizabeth St. Philip 2010 16 min
    Renee Thompson is trying to make it as a top fashion model in New York. She's got the looks, the walk and the drive. But she’s a black model in a world where white women represent the standard of beauty. Agencies rarely hire black models. And when they do, they want them to look “like white girls dipped in chocolate.”

    The Colour of Beauty is a shocking short documentary that examines racism in the fashion industry. Is a black model less attractive to designers, casting directors and consumers? What is the colour of beauty?
  • Citizens' Medicine
    Citizens' Medicine
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    Bonnie Sherr Klein 1970 30 min
    In Montréal, the St. Jacques Citizens' Committee set up a community health clinic, aided by volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists and medical students. This film shows discussion, planning, and the clinic in operation, and presents its problems and advantages as seen both by medical workers and by local residents. Members of the Citizens' Committee participated in the making of the film, from original planning through filming, selecting and editing.
  • A Composer's Dream
    A Composer's Dream
    Barbara Willis-Sweete 2011 7 min
    This short film demonstrates how Howard Shore has distinguished himself as one of Canada's most accomplished - and versatile - composers.

    During woodland rambles with his beloved dogs, Shore gives free rein to his ceaseless creativity. Whether composing delicate counterpoint or Oscar®-winning movie music, Shore is keenly tuned to a remarkable range of musical expression.

  • The Dance of Words
    The Dance of Words
    Yves Étienne Massicotte 2014 44 min
    Over 200,000 people in Canada are deaf. For deaf francophones, Quebec Sign Language is essential to both their identity and their connection to the deaf community. In the past decades, parents and doctors have pushed for hearing aids, cochlear implants and a mainstream education for deaf kids. Yet this thrust into the hearing world has come at a price for some deaf students, who may have trouble following classroom activities and end up being marginalized.

    The Dance of Words features young artists who have embraced their deaf identity in adulthood after spending a difficult childhood in the grey zone between hearing culture and deaf culture. These emerging artists show how they are using the arts to build a deaf culture that makes them proud. They shine a spotlight on their community while promoting and advancing deaf culture with a keen sensitivity.
  • Diana Leblanc
    Diana Leblanc
    Mary Lewis 2015 4 min
    This short follows grand dame of the theatre Diana Leblanc as she prepares for a role in The Dybbuk (Soulpepper Theatre Company) and gets ready to direct an opera (Madame Butterfly). The film weaves together archival footage, photographs, and animation depicting Leblanc as a young ballerina, offering an intimate reflection on her life’s passions, challenges, and lessons.

    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 2015 Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.
  • Enigmatico
    Enigmatico
    David Mortin  &  Patricia Fogliato 1995 51 min
    Interweaving poetry, painting, photography, music and sculpture, this feature documentary is an innovative look at the lives and work of Canadian men and women artists of Italian origin. Broaching issues of identity and culture, the film explores the relationship between the immigrant experience and the creative process.
  • 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.
  • Fighting Back
    Fighting Back
    Gary Toole 1984 24 min
    The Cabbagetown Boxing Club in Toronto has produced many Olympic and world-class boxers. Fighting Back is the story of Asif Dar, an underweight immigrant who learned boxing in order to defend himself from neighbourhood bullies. The film traces the relationship between Asif Dar, who came to the club as a youngster, and his instructor, Ken Hamilton, a long-time foe of the violence traditionally associated with boxing.
  • Growing Up Canadian: Work
    Growing Up Canadian: Work
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    Susan Terrill 2003 46 min
    From working six days a week in a factory to serving up sundaes at the Dairy Queen on weekends, Canadian children have done it all. In the first half of the century many families couldn't get by without financial help from their kids. The nation counted on its young when it came to wartime; from joining up to fight to tucking a love note in a scarf knit for an unknown soldier, witnesses recall their contributions.

    Recollections of work include cheapskate bosses, the decision to quit and the experience of getting fired. It was tough working in the coal mines and out in the fishing dories, but even babysitters join in the complaints about lousy conditions and low pay!

    Work is one of a 6-part series entitled Growing Up Canadian. These documentaries explore the myths and realities of Canadian childhood through family life, schooling, work, play, health and the media. The series marks the contribution of childhood and youth experience in defining Canada as it grew into full nationhood in the 20th century.
  • Growing Up Canadian: School
    Growing Up Canadian: School
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    Sheila Petzold 2003 46 min
    Growing up has become marked in school years but at the beginning of the 20th century most children attended primary school only. This bygone era is wonderfully evoked by still photos and archival film showing what children studied and where, from the one-room schoolhouse to a railway car.

    School in the 1940s and '50s is brought to life through interviews with adults who remember the first day at kindergarten, feared and loved teachers and encounters with the strap. The '60s and '70s brought television into the classroom and the concept of the open school, which changed the actual building.

    School is one of a 6-part series entitled Growing Up Canadian. These documentaries explore the myths and realities of Canadian childhood through family life, schooling, work, play, health and the media. The series marks the contribution of childhood and youth experience in defining Canada as it grew into full nationhood in the 20th century.
  • The Grasslands Project - Generations
    The Grasslands Project - Generations
    Scott Parker 2016 7 min
    This short documentary from The Grasslands Project introduces us to nineteen-year-old Shawn Catherwood, who knew from a young age that he’d be a farmer. Many small communities are losing their young people, attracted to careers away from the farm. But it’s always been Shawn's dream to follow in the footsteps of his father, Ken. This film shows Shawn and his father as they navigate the coming generational change, while the audience is given insight into their deep love of the family farm.
  • The Stamp
    The Stamp
    Iris Boudreau  &  Francis Papillon 2019 2 min
    Iris wants to send her grandfather a birthday card. Touching, right? But Cathon doesn't want her friend to raid her collection looking for a stamp. Did someone really once pay $9.5 million for a single stamp?
  • Hi-Ho Mistahey! (Short Version)
    Hi-Ho Mistahey! (Short Version)
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    Alanis Obomsawin 2013 59 min
    In this feature-length documentary, Alanis Obomsawin tells the story of Shannen’s Dream, a national campaign to provide equitable access to education in safe and suitable schools for First Nations children. Strong participation in this initiative eventually brings Shannen's Dream all the way to the United Nations in Geneva.
  • Hi-Ho Mistahey!
    Hi-Ho Mistahey!
    Alanis Obomsawin 2013 1 h 39 min
    In this feature-length documentary, Alanis Obomsawin tells the story of Shannen’s Dream, a national campaign to provide equitable access to education in safe and suitable schools for First Nations children. Strong participation in this initiative eventually brings Shannen's Dream all the way to the United Nations in Geneva.

  • Inner Rush
    Inner Rush
    Christopher Romeike 2012 6 min
    This short film pays tribute to Rush, one of rock's most successful and popular bands of all-time. 'Humility' and 'rock and roll' don't usually appear together, yet the members of Rush (Geddy Lee, Neil Peart, and Alex Lifeson), reflect here on a career of making music built on craft, heart and an uncompromised commitment to push the limits - to always 'get better'.

    Produced by the National Film Board of Canada in co-operation with the National Arts Centre and the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Foundation on the occasion of the 2012 Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.
  • The Impresario
    The Impresario
    Anita Doron 2010 5 min
    Walter Homburger helped bring Glenn Gould and a succession of other great musicians to the attention of the world. Using shadow puppets and silhouettes, this short documentary captures the irrepressible spirit of a great impresario, manager and orchestra administrator who has devoted his life to furthering classical music in Canada.
  • Japan Inc: Lessons for North America?
    Japan Inc: Lessons for North America?
    Kalle Lasn 1980 27 min
    This short documentary is an absorbing study of Japanese business and industry. Discipline and productivity in Japan are much more regimented than in many other parts of the world. For the 110 million Japanese, survival means doing things together, rather than asserting a North American-style individualism. Japan's industry has automated and computerized at an unparalleled rate. Open-concept offices and collaborative work styles offer a model of the changing style of modern work that could inspire the West to modify their processes as well.
  • Luckily I Need Little Sleep
    Luckily I Need Little Sleep
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    Kathleen Shannon 1974 7 min
    Kathy worked as a nurse in Greece and then came to Canada. She and her family live in northern Alberta, where they are developing a farm. Kathy works outside the home as a nurse, sews for the children, maintains the house, and helps with the farm work.
  • Lessons in Living
    Lessons in Living
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    Bill MacDonald 1944 23 min
    The community of Lantzville, British Columbia, is a cross-section of nationalities and industrial groups--farmers, fishermen, lumbermen and railroad workers. Its spirit and its public school were down at the heels, but both community and school were transformed. An adjoining barn was converted into a community hall for the parents, to serve at the same time as a school gymnasium and as a workshop for the farm mechanics class. With the improved building, the whole school program was broadened.
  • Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher
    Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher
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    Heather Campbell 2023 15 min
    Part oral history and part visual poem, Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher is the story of Evelyn Campbell, a trailblazer for an Inuit-led educational system in the small community of Rigolet, Labrador.
  • Mabel
    Mabel
    Teresa MacInnes 2016 20 min
    Feisty, fiercely independent and firmly rooted in place, 90 year-old Mabel Robinson broke barriers back in the 40s when she became the first woman in Hubbards, Nova Scotia, to launch her own business—a hairdressing salon where she still provides shampoo-n-sets over 70 years later. Weaving animation and archival imagery with intimate and laugh out loud moments in the salon, the film celebrates the power of friendship, doing what you love and staying active. With no desire to retire anytime soon, Mabel gives voice to a generation who are not front and center of cinema or the pop hairstyles of the day, and subtly shifts the lens on our perception of beauty and the elderly.