Social & External
"This documentary depicts a canoe being built in the traditional manner. Cesar Newashish, a 67-year-old Attikamek of the Manawan Reserve North of Montréal, uses only birchbark, cedar splints, spruce roots, and gum. With a sure hand he works methodically to fashion a craft unsurpassed in function or beauty of design. Building a canoe solely from the materials that the forest provides may become a lost art, even among the Native Peoples whose traditional craft it is. The film is free of spoken commentary but text appears on the screen in Cree, French, and English." - Anthology Film Archives
"This film is one of the first French Unit productions of the “Société Nouvelle/Challenge for Change” program. When an old area of Montréal is to be demolished to make way for a new low-income housing development, is there anything the residents can do to protect their own interests? The film documents such a situation in the Little Burgundy district of Montréal and shows how the residents organized themselves into a committee that successfully influenced the city’s housing policy." - Anthology Film Archives
A documentary about direct-cinema from its very beginnings (Nanook of the North) to the fake-direct-cinema of the Blair Witch Project. All the important direct-cinema filmmakers are portrayed and/or interviewed: Leacock, Wiseman, Maysles, Pennebaker, Reisz and others.
Feature-length documentary as part of Pierre Perrault's Abitibian Cycle. The filmmaker questions the past and present of Abitibi and draws up, face to face, the promises of colonization in the 1930s and the great disappointment caused by the closing of the land in the 1970s. There are witnesses to the heroic era, including the cultivator Hauris Lalancette, as well as extracts from films by Father Maurice Proulx (1934-1940).
A working class family leaves St-Henri quarter in Montréal to build a new home in the countryside.
"This feature documentary is considered to be the forerunner of the NFB's Challenge for Change Program. The film offers in inside look at 3 weeks in the life of the Bailey family. Trouble with the police, begging for stale bread, and the birth of another child are just some of the issues they face. Through it all, the father tries to explain his family's predicament. Although filmed in Montreal, the film offers an anatomy of poverty as it occurs throughout North America." - NFB
"Montréal under the snow and the cold winter. It is the period of the year when the garage owners strike it rich. The automobile at the service of man? This small opus would rather show the contrary. This is one in a series of eight films titled “Chronicle of Everyday Life,” a project that filmmaker Jacques Leduc took four years to realize, and whose goal was to revisit Direct Cinema at a moment when it was already heavily “contaminated” by mainstream TV." - Anthology Film Archives
The city and its parking lots.
In 2013 Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond embarked on what they hoped would be the perfect road trip. It started well and ended, quite frankly, very badly. Unbowed, the Top Gear pair are back for another crack and this time they're hoping to avoid inconveniences like apprehension by the French police. Welcome, then, to The Perfect Road Trip... 2. Once again, Clarkson and Hammond are seeking joy and perfection wherever it may be with a range of fast, beautiful and exciting cars unleashed on glorious roads amongst gorgeous scenery and drenched in Mediterranean sunshine. As part of their arduous research into perfection, the duo will also undertake some ridiculous challenges and hilarious stunts culminating in a strangely literal car race on the island of Capri. Top Gear - The Perfect Road Trip 2. This time it really is perfect. Except for the bits that aren't.
Guy Martin joins the two-year restoration of a Spitfire that was buried in a French beach for decades, and tells the Boy's Own-style story of its pilot, Squadron Leader Geoffrey Stephenson
A documentary about environment destruction in the Amazon and the tribes living there. Produced for the 48th anniversary of MBC, Korea. A brilliant records of the itinerary for 250 days through the Amazon.
In a small village in the mountains of Uttarakhand, a daughter is lured by the possibilities of city life, while her mother is haunted by the prospect of their land’s desolation.
When, in the seventies, British folk singer Cat Stevens, later known as Yusuf Islam, achieved worldwide fame, he immediately became the spokesman for a disillusioned hippie generation.
A new reading of the historical period that began with the reign of the Catholic Monarchs (1479-1516) and the discovery of America (1492), as well as an analysis of its undeniable influence on the subsequent evolution of the history of Spain and the world.
Risto Jarva's short documentary on housing in Helsinki in the late 1960's.
A boat trip in the Helsinki archipelago: images of water, light and people on the cruise. The same people are met in the city in different situations: at work, with their family, in conversations with a circle of friends, meditating and figuring out their duties. Work and aspirations are important and encouraging to them. They all seem to have something personal to say about their time, their views and their imaginations.
A compilation of excerpts from old Helsinki-themed documentaries and new material.
This is a story of the violence and coercion that underlies our modern societies. Most of the time, our interactions are peaceful and consensual, but there is a large notable exception. The state maintains its power and ability to create law by the constant threat of force. It prohibits competition to its authority, and in this sense, represents a monopoly.
