Canada Vignettes: Calliope

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: The Performer

This short film from the Canada Vignettes series features tenor Roger Doucet singing the Canadian national anthem, O Canada, before a hockey game in the Montreal Forum.

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: 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.

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.

Temples of Time

Filmed in the Canadian Rockies and in Garibaldi Park, this documentary features magnificent footage of mountain solitudes and the wildlife found there, of natural splendour in all its changing moods. The film carries the implicit warning that all this may pass away if people do not seek to preserve it. Without words.

You Are on Indian Land

The territory of Akwesasne straddles the Canada-U.S. border. When Canadian authorities prohibited the duty-free cross-border passage of personal purchases - a right established by the Jay Treaty of 1794 - Kanien'kéhaka protesters blocked the international bridge between Ontario and New York State.

That's the Price

What happens to two dying coal towns in British Columbia when an American corporation provides a contract for millions of tons of coking coal? The film follows the consequences for the towns of Natal and Michel, suggesting that industrial growth has its price, especially with regard to the environment.

The Concert Man

This documentary short is a portrait of violinist, composer and dreamer Maurice Zbriger, who shared his music with Montrealers for over half a century. He hired musicians and singers and conducted them in free concerts financed with income from his ownership of Schwartz's, the famous smoked meat restaurant. The Concert Man looks at Zbriger's life, his passion for music and the people who were a part of his dream.

Cold Journey

In this feature drama, a Canadian Indigenous youth attempts to find a place for himself. He faces culture shock as the educational system teaches him to be a white man and tries to find a way of life more meaningful to his Indigenous culture and ancestry.

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.

The Dowry

A little drama, almost a love triangle, filmed on the Canadian Atlantic coast, about a fisherman, his girl, and his boat. The boat needs a new engine but the owner lacks the cash. His girl's undertaker brother has money enough if he can be persuaded to lend it. What develops in the film is an object lesson showing that neither a boat nor a girl can be taken too much for granted.

Transitions

A look at the various modes of transportation made for the Expo '86 World Fair in Vancouver, Canada.

Don't Knock the Ox

The International Ox Pull, highlight of the Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, annual fair, is a holdover from the pioneer past when oxen cleared the land and tilled the soil. These beasts of burden have lost none of their pulling power, as demonstrated when they drag tons of weight loaded on sleds (the winner pulls up to 6 tons!). Competing teams come from various parts of the Maritimes and the Northeastern United States.

Here is Canada

Viewers outside Canada, and Canadians themselves, here have the pleasure of looking at, understanding, and discovering the many facets of this vast land, presented in choice film footage that is at once informative, visually appealing, and absorbing.

Impressions of Expo 67

This short film served as an invitation to the World's Fair that was held in Montreal in 1967. It was largely considered to be the most successful World's Fair of the 20th century with over 50 million visitors. The film presents impressions of the event and of Montreal at its liveliest and most exciting moment in history.

The Art of the Animator Part II

"The Art of the Animator" series examines the creative thoughts and processes behind the meticulous work of several animators; this part examines the work of Co Hoedeman, Jacques Drouin, George Ungar and Gayle Thomas - animators who create motion out of still images, in what is often lonesome and painstaking work. By observing these artists at work, the filmmakers show the deft and quite magical process of animation that requires great commitment, patience and artistic cleverness.

Cree Hunters of Mistassini

An NFB crew filmed a group of three families, Cree hunters from Mistassini. Since times predating agriculture, this First Nations people have gone to the bush of the James Bay and Ungava Bay area to hunt. We see the building of the winter camp, the hunting and the rhythms of Cree family life.

The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar

"The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar" tells the story of Emery Prometer, a proud bush worker in Ottawa Valley, resisting government aid to support his family. The film compassionately depicts their struggles and the resolve of Emery's daughter, Rosie, (Margot Kidder in her film debut) to break the cycle of poverty through education. This '60s NFB standout authentically portrays their dignity amid hardship, showcasing Canadian filmmaking despite hurdles from private broadcasters' cost concerns. The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar won eight Canadian Film Awards, including Best Picture (John Kemeny, Barrie Howells), Director (Peter Pearson), Cinematography (Tony Ianzelo), Screenplay (Joan Finnegan) and Lead Actor (Chris Wiggins).

The Art of the Animator Part I

"The Art of the Animator" series examines the creative thoughts and processes behind the meticulous work of several animators; this part examines the work of Ishu Patel, Caroline Leaf and John Weldon - animators who create motion out of still images, in what is often lonesome and painstaking work. By observing these artists at work, the filmmakers show the deft and quite magical process of animation that requires great commitment, patience and artistic cleverness.