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Science and Technology (23)
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The Bronswik AffairRobert Awad & André Leduc 1978 23 minThis funny yet serious short film demonstrates the effectiveness of advertising and the marketing machine. Its comic appeal lies in the characters and the absurd situations they find themselves in, but it also shines a harsh light on our tendency towards needless consumerism prompted by a steady flow of commercials. -
The Balgonie BirdmanBrian Duchscherer 1991 8 minA 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.
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Challenger: An Industrial RomanceStephen Low 1980 57 minThis feature documentary follows the development of Canadair's super-executive jet. A totally new type of aircraft, it is faster, cheaper to fly, and more comfortable than any other business jet. Would it make it off the drawing board and into the air? The film captures the spirit of the Canadian air transport industry and its attempt to compete with its American counterparts.
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Skier1978 2 minIn this short vignette, skier Kathy Kreiner prepares for and participates in her Olympic gold-medal race at Innsbruck.
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A Cow's TaleJohn Tanasiciuk 2006 5 minDoes technology make our lives easier?
Audrey works away at her computer and she encounters a problem. Nothing seems to help: neither a co-worker's advice, nor the user manual, nor the help line. Stuck on hold, Audrey dreams of how simple life must have been before the age of technology.
This animated tale, with a real animal soundtrack, makes for a funny and witty dig at how little we've really evolved. A film without words. -
Eye Witness No. 401952 11 minThe Eye Witness series is a collection of short documentaries featuring Canadian news stories from the 1940s and '50s. This segment includes Prairie Harbour: The Port of Flowing Grain, a look at the lakehead cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, funnelling centres for western grain on its way to world markets. In Modern Miracle: Surgery is Safe, the appendectomy of patient Henry Brown demonstrates the advances in modern medicine. Co-Op Carpenters: Home-Made Community illustrates the principles behind the cooperative housing program for veterans in Carleton Heights near Ottawa.
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The End of TimePeter Mettler 2012 1 h 53 minVisionary filmmaker Peter Mettler takes on the elusive subject of time, and once again seeks to film the unfilmable on a journey that takes him to a particle accelerator in Switzerland and lava flows in Hawaii, disintegrating inner-city Detroit and a Hindu funeral rite near the place of Buddha’s enlightenment. Mettler dares to dream the movie of the future while also immersing us in the wonder of the everyday.
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Eye Witness No. 461952 11 minThese vignettes from 1952 covered various aspects of life in Canada and were shown in theatres across the country. Subjects included a floating laboratory ship from the National Research Council, a visit by a group of Canadian veterans revisiting Normandy plus events at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens.
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The Fight for True FarmingEve Lamont 2005 1 h 29 minIn this documentary, crop and animal farmers in Quebec, the Canadian West, the US Northeast and France offer solutions to the social and environmental scourges of factory farming. Driven by the forces of globalization, rampant agribusiness is harming the environmemt and threatening the survival of farms. The proliferation of GMO crops is a further threat to biodiversity as well as to farmers' autonomy. In Europe as well as North America, a current of resistance bringing together farmers and consumers insists that it is possible - indeed imperative - to grow food differently.
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The ClockIris Boudreau & Francis Papillon 2019 2 minCathon has found something wonderful in the recycling bin—a birdsong clock. But Iris isn’t totally on board with her friend’s taste, so she seeks a compromise. She wonders how people told time before clocks.
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The GlassesCathon , Iris Boudreau , … 2019 2 minCathon proudly shows off her new glasses. Iris is at a loss for words—she’s speechless with admiration. Where do eyeglasses even come from, and how did people first get them to stay on their noses?
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Recycle Steel?Tina Keeper 1999 4 minIn this short documentary, watch sparks fly and molten metal run white hot as it goes from scrap metal to fresh steel.
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Recycle Paper?Winston Washington Moxam 1999 4 minThis short film depicts what happens to all that paper we put in our recycling boxes.
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Braid Rope?Don White 1997 4 minHow Do They Braid Rope? is a fascinating visual voyage through the twists and turns of rope-making. The How Do They...? series is comprised of short films that reveal the mysteries behind how everyday things are made. A film without words.
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Muybridge's StringsKoji Yamamura 2011 12 minCan time be made to stand still? Can it be reversed? Koji Yamamura’s Muybridge's Strings is a meditation on this theme, contrasting the worlds of the photographer Eadweard Muybridge—who in 1878 successfully photographed consecutive phases in the movement of a galloping horse—and a mother who, watching her daughter grow up, realizes she is slipping away from her. Moving between California and Tokyo, between the nineteenth century and the twenty-first, the film focuses on some of the highpoints in Muybridge’s troubled life and intercuts them with the mother’s surrealistic daydreams—a poetic clash that explores the irrepressible human desire to seize life’s fleeting moments, to freeze the instants of happiness. Enriched by Koji Yamamura’s refined artistry and Normand Roger’s soundtrack, Muybridge's Strings observes the ties that cease to bind, fixes its gaze on the course of life, and presents a moment in time suspended on the crystalline notes of a canon by J.S. Bach.
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Medicine Under the InfluenceLina B. Moreco 2004 1 h 17 minThis feature documentary tackles a taboo subject: the tragic effects of life-sustaining medical treatment on infants. Through the courageous testimony of a handful of doctors and therapists as well as the shocking stories told by devoted parents of disabled children, this film denounces the lack of support offered to science's little "miracles." Once saved, the children are more or less left to their fate by a medical system that does not give them the therapy needed to improve their quality of life and develop to their fullest potential.
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Operation LeverSylvain Charbonneau 2000 1 minA clip in the Science Please! collection, Operation Lever uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain how a lever increases force.
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Project GrizzlyPeter Lynch 1996 1 h 12 minIn this feature-length documentary, Troy James Hurtubise goes face to face with Canada's most deadly land mammal, the grizzly bear. Troy is the creator of what he hopes is a grizzly-proof suit, and he repeatedly tests his armour – and courage – in stunts that are both hair-raising and hilarious. Directed by Peter Lynch, the film has become a cult classic in the United States and is rumoured to be a favourite of director Quentin Tarantino.
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The PirateMichel Murray 1991 19 minIn this short fiction film, Estelle, the scientist in charge of a research project on water, is getting ready for a conference with the help of her "intelligent" satellite Zenon. But a teenage hacker has found an illegal way to consult Zenon's files. Things look very bad when the hacker accidentally infects Zenon with a virulent computer virus.
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RailroadersGuy L. Coté 1958 22 minThis is a short documentary about winter railroading in the Canadian Rockies and the men who keep the lines clear. The stretch between Revelstoke and Field, British Columbia, is a snow-choked threat to communications. The film shows the work of section hands, maintenance men, train crews and telegraph operators.
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To BeJohn Weldon 1990 10 minBlending fantasy and reality, this animated short is a bold inquiry into an as yet unresolved problem - the nature of human identity. When a scientist creates a machine that can make copies of physical objects, including humans, a number of ethical questions arise. Is the technique moral? What of its safety? A film by Oscar-winning filmmaker John Weldon (who also wrote the catchy banjo tune that punctuates the story's changing moods).
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The Tesla World LightMatthew Rankin 2017 8 minNew York, 1905. Visionary inventor Nikola Tesla makes one last appeal to J.P. Morgan, his onetime benefactor. Inspired by real events, this electrifying short is a spectacular burst of image and sound that draws as much from the tradition of avant-garde cinema as it does from animated documentary.
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Wheel Meets FrictionClaude Cloutier 1998 1 minA clip in the Science Please! collection, Wheel Meets Friction uses archival footage, animated illustrations and amusing narration to explain how the invention of the ball bearing reinvented the wheel.
