Canada Vignettes: The Performer

Canada Vignettes: The Horse

This animated short illustrates how at one time horses provided man with unprecedented mobility and how the arrival of the iron horse brought this era to an end.

Canada Vignettes: News Canada

Historical events are related through the medium of simulated news broadcasting in 1878.

Canada Vignettes: Spence's Republic

An animated vignette about the role of Thomas Spence in the formation and demise of the Republic of Manitoba at Portage la Prairie in 1867-68.

Canada Vignettes: Lady Frances Simpson

A humorous account of the pioneering journey of Lady Frances Simpson, along with her piano, from England to Manitoba.

Canada Vignettes: Holidays

A montage of watercolour images of the work and occasional play of a farm family.

Canada Vignettes: Logger

The history of the development of modern logging techniques on the British Columbia coast.

Canada Vignettes: Faces

Animated images showing the variety of people who live in Canada.

Canada Vignettes: Toronto

An animated film depicting the evolution of the City of Toronto from 1749 to 1978.

Canada Vignettes: Newfoundland

An examination of the Viking explorers who were the first Europeans to discover Canada.

Canada Vignettes: Skier

In this short vignette, skier Kathy Kreiner prepares for and participates in her Olympic gold-medal race at Innsbruck.

Canada Vignettes: Captain Cook

Two hundred years ago Captain Cook stopped briefly at Nootka Sound. This animated vignette depicts how he began the sea otter trade which led to the development of the Pacific north west.

Canada Vignettes: Land Bridge

This film describes the journey of nomadic Asian people to North America via a land bridge.

Canada Vignettes: Port Royal

This is the story of the first French settlers in North America, who spent their first winter on an island in the Bay of Fundy. Despite overwhelming hardships the survivors, joined by other new colonists, eventually established Port Royal, the foundation of Acadia and the Acadian people.

Canada Vignettes: Trading Post

An animated film about the Hudson's Bay trading post, and the relationship between fur traders and Indians.

Canada Vignettes: Flin Flon

This short documentary vignette reveals the curious origin of the name of Flin Flon, Manitoba.

Canada Vignettes: Bill Miner

Bill Miner was a train robber in British Columbia at the turn of the century. This animated film depicts a disastrous episode in his career.

Canada Vignettes: Onions and Garlic: A Hebrew Fable

This animated short tells a humourous Hebrew folk tale about a man's venture to introduce onions to a far away kingdom and a disreputable man's attempt to exploit that.

Canada Vignettes: Sodbusters

A Canadian prairie farm family has a tough beginning on their new farm.

Canada Vignettes: Stunt Family

This short film from the Canada Vignettes series profiles a unique French-Canadian family, the Fourniers, 12 of whom work as stunt men and women for films.

Canada Vignettes: Acadian Quadrille

A short history of one of the traditional dances of Acadia--the quadrille.

Canada Vignettes: The Maple Leaf

The maple leaf on the Canadian flag turns into two profiles that illustrate the many relationships between people.

Canada Vignettes: Hudden and Dudden and Donald O'Neary

There's a "silver lining in every cloud" as Donald O'Neary turns every misfortune his two neighbours can engineer into gold coins. Against the background of the Irish countryside, the customary "rich but dumb" characters meet their match in the "poor but crafty" hero. The story introduces the student to our rich multicultural background through the exploration of folklore of one of the peoples that make up Canada's cultural mosaic.

Canada Vignettes: Fort Prince of Wales

A Canada Vignette giving a humorous animated version of the history of Fort Prince of Wales from its construction to its capture by the French.

Canada Vignettes: December Lights

Animated film of a traditional Franco-Manitoban tale that resembles the story of the first Christmas.

Canada Vignettes: Log Driver's Waltz

A short illustrating Wade Hemsworth's folk song about a woman's admiration for the agility of her boyfriend, the log driver.

Canada Vignettes: Alouette

A story about two symbolic characters who sway to the song Alouette.

Canada Vignettes: Moccasins

Close-ups of fine detail of the ancient skill of quillwork embroidery--brightly coloured geometric designs on high-ankled, Seneca-type moccasins. These moccasins are over one hundred years old, from the fabled Speyer Collection that was repatriated from Germany by the National Museum of Man in 1975.

Canada Vignettes: Dance

The metamorphosis of a map of Canada into human forms who share the natural resources to the rhythm of a dance.

Canada Vignettes: Riverdale Lion

A visual interpretation of the poem "Riverdale Lion" by Canadian poet and essayist John Robert Colombo.

Canada Vignettes: Instant French

This film promotes, in the best K-Tel tradition, a new device used to speak French.

Canada Vignettes: Woolly Mammoth

An animated film showing a woolly mammoth and its offspring. These animals lived on the Canadian tundra over ten thousand years ago.

Canada Vignettes: The Egg

An egg desperately tries to prevent being hatched. In this animated short from the Canada Vignette series, learn how societies in evolution are often in danger of self-destruction.

Canada Vignettes: Métis Coat

The decorative pattern style of a traditional Metis coat is explored.

Canada Vignettes: Inuit Pipe

In this animated short from the Canada Vignette series, the camera explores, in exquisite detail, the daily hunt, fishing scenes and children at play as etched in black on an ivory Inuit pipe.

Canada Vignettes: Delta Plane

This film is about the emotions that can lead one to take that jump into space necessary for hang gliding with a Delta Plane.

Canada Vignettes: Bluenose 1921-1946

A short history of Canada's greatest sailing ship.

Canada Vignettes: Don Messer - His Land and His Music - Don Messer 1910-1973

One of six Canada Vignettes from the NFB production Don Messer - His Land and His Music, featuring one of the principal performers, Don Messer, who has since passed away.

Canada Vignettes: Don Messer - His Land and His Music - Marg Osburne 1927-1977 Pt. 1

One of six Canada Vignettes from the NFB production Don Messer - His Land and His Music, featuring one of the principal performers, Marg Osburne, who has since passed away.

Canada Vignettes: McIntosh

A vignette based on the story of John McIntosh, the Ontario developer of the McIntosh apple.

Canada Vignettes: Ma Chère Albertine

This short film from the Canada Vignettes series depicts the Montreal of 1905-1910 with hand-painted vintage postcards.

Canada Vignettes: Love on Wheels

This short fiction film tells the love story between a young anglophone and a young francophone who unite their destinies in roller skates.

Canada Vignettes: Calliope

A vignette on the travelling calliope (also known as steam organ), a musical instrument that produces sound by sending steam through large locomotive whistles.

Canada Vignettes: Klondike Gold

This animated film illustrates the terrible journey, the back-breaking work, the exotic and gaudy city of Dawson, and the turmoil and triumphs of the 1898 Klondike gold rush.

Canada Vignettes: Arctic Seascape

A vignette exploring the depths of the Arctic Ocean.

Canada Vignettes: Angel of Death

A vignette about a 1912 fly-swatting contest organized by The Toronto Daily Star to draw attention to the danger posed to public health by flies. Through archival photographs and newspaper headlines the highlights of the contest are reviewed in a light, humorous manner. The winner, a determined young lady named Beatrice White, killed over 500 000 flies during the six-week contest and was dubbed the "Angel of Death" by the paper.

Canada Vignettes: Melvin Arbuckle, Famous Canadian

W.O. Mitchell recounts Newton's Law of Falling Backhouses, a story based on the youthful pranks of his prairie childhood.

Canada Vignettes: Countdown

This vignette illustrates the variety of professions, people and technical procedures required by the filmmaking process.

Canada Vignettes: Ice

Ice cutting on the St. Lawrence River in the 1860s is illustrated in song and animated graphics.

Canada Vignettes: Catapult Canada

This model-animation vignette takes a humorous look at the theme of transportation.

Canada Vignettes: Mussel Mud

A vignette using animation and live action to depict mussel farmers digging in the mud through the ice on bays and estuaries in Prince Edward Island.

Canada Vignettes: The Move

In this short documentary from the Canada Vignettes series, a Saskatchewan grain elevator is moved across the snow-covered prairie to a new home after nearly a half-century of use. The film follows the lifting and transporting of the 9-storey, 200-ton structure, and examines the feelings of the people as they witness the final passing of their town's one and only grain elevator.

The Atwood Stories

The Atwood Stories was a Canadian television drama series, which aired on W in 2003. A short-run dramatic anthology series produced by Shaftesbury Films, the series dramatized six short stories by Margaret Atwood.

Nose and Tina

Nose and Tina are a couple in love. The film captures the domestic details of their life together and documents their hassles with work, money and the law. The unusual bit: He is employed as a brakeman, and she as a sex worker.

Anne with an E

A coming-of-age story about an outsider who, against all odds and numerous challenges, fights for love and acceptance and for her place in the world. The series centers on a young orphaned girl in the late 1890s, who, after an abusive childhood spent in orphanages and the homes of strangers, is mistakenly sent to live with an elderly woman and her aging brother. Over time, 13-year-old Anne will transform their lives and eventually the small town in which they live with her unique spirit, fierce intellect and brilliant imagination.

Outlander

The story of Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743, where she is immediately thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened. When she is forced to marry Jamie, a chivalrous and romantic young Scottish warrior, a passionate affair is ignited that tears Claire's heart between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

Project Blue Book

A chronicle of the true top secret U.S. Air Force-sponsored investigations into UFO-related phenomena in the 1950s and ’60s, known as “Project Blue Book”.

Superman & Lois

After years of facing megalomaniacal supervillains, monsters wreaking havoc on Metropolis, and alien invaders intent on wiping out the human race, The Man of Steel aka Clark Kent and Lois Lane come face to face with one of their greatest challenges ever: dealing with all the stress, pressures and complexities that come with being working parents in today's society.

Reign

Mary, Queen of Scots, faces political and sexual intrigue in the treacherous world of the French court.

Women in the Shadows

Filmed on location in Saskatchewan from the Qu'Appelle Valley to Hudson Bay, the documentary traces the filmmaker's quest for her Native foremothers in spite of the reluctance to speak about Native roots on the part of her relatives. The film articulates Métis women's experience with racism in both current and historical context, and examines the forces that pushed them into the shadows.

Mistress Madeleine

Part of the Daughters of the Country series, this film, set in the 1850s, unfolds against the backdrop of the Hudson's Bay Company's monopoly of the fur trade. In protest, some Métis engage in trade with the Americans. Madeleine, the Métis common-law wife of a Hudson's Bay Company clerk, is torn between loyalty to her husband and loyalty to her brother, a freetrader. Even more shattering, a change in company policy destroys Madeleine's happy and secure life, forcing her to re-evaluate her identity.

Caitlin's Way

Caitlin, a tough city girl and an orphan since age eight, faces two options when she gets in trouble with the law: Go to juvenile hall, or move to the wilds of Montana to live with distant cousins.

The Way Home

When three generations of women reunite after being estranged for more than two decades, they embark on an enlightening – and surprising – journey toward healing none of them could have imagined as they learn how to find their way back to each other.

The Way to You

New Yorkers Emma and Conrad agree to help each other find their missed connections after a subway blackout. Their search might lead to love, but not where either of them expects to find it.

Love on the Danube: Royal Getaway

Heartbroken after being jilted at the altar, Ava, a straight-talking urban art gallery manager, takes her honeymoon anyway and meets a charming European gentleman who shares her passion for art. However, trust and deception are an issue.

Beauty and the Beast

Detective Catherine Chandler is a smart, no-nonsense homicide detective. When she was a teenager, she witnessed the murder of her mother at the hands of two gunmen and herself was saved by someone – or something. Years have passed and while investigating a murder, Catherine discovers a clue that leads her to Vincent Keller, who was reportedly killed in 2002. Catherine learns that Vincent is actually still alive and that it was he who saved her many years before. For mysterious reasons that have forced him to live outside of traditional society, Vincent has been in hiding for the past 10 years to guard his secret – when he is enraged, he becomes a terrifying beast, unable to control his super-strength and heightened senses.

Cowboys & Indians

A police constable guns down a First Nations chief one snow night in Winnipeg, a tragedy that will impact the community for years to come.

Mary Kills People

Dr. Mary Harris, a single mother and emergency doctor by day, also moonlights as an underground angel of death - helping terminally ill patients who want to die and slip away on their own terms. So far Mary has managed to stay under the radar; but business is booming, and her double life is getting complicated. When her world starts to unravel, Mary realizes she's going to have to fight dirty if she's going to stay in the killing game.