Weaving animation and live action, Northlore delves into the transformational stories of people living in Canada’s North and their deep connection to the land and its wildlife.
Social & External
The people behind it
In this short documentary, a Musqueam elder rediscovers his Native language and traditions in the city of Vancouver, in the vicinity of which the Musqueam people have lived for thousands of years. Writing the Land captures the ever-changing nature of a modern city - the glass and steel towers cut against the sky, grass, trees and a sudden flash of birds in flight and the enduring power of language to shape perception and create memory.
This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.
Produced for the NFB by Crawley Films Ltd. for the Canadian Department of Industry Trade and Commerce. This film provides a showcase for products manufactured in Canada, from aircraft designed for special duties, to pre-cast bathrooms that can be installed in one simple operation. There is heavy-duty machinery developed for the special needs of Canadian industry. There are women's fashions of universal appeal. All bear the 'Made in Canada' label and can be viewed in this film in colour and at close range.
Walking along an Bronze Age path in the footsteps of Saint Patrick, pilgrims find community and inner-healing.
Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.
A retired truck driver reflects on a life spent on the road while his children explore the emotional toll of his absence, honouring the unsung heroes who keep the world moving.
Exploring the concept of the Ecology of Emotions, this musical film portrays an inner journey through the secret garden of creativity put into frame by the nature of Iceland. Hidden Eden is a metaphor for our inner secret garden of creativity. This project bloomed during an art residency in Iceland, sparked by conversations around our shared philosophies on voice and emotional connection. The nature of Iceland inspired us to make the connection on how the landscape reflects the emotional states of creativity and how it helps manage the homeostasis of our inner emotional landscapes. This exchange between emotion and the landscape opens a space for healing. Creativity provides us with the tools to access a garden of our authentic being, nourishing and balancing us. Allowing ourselves to explore the spectrum of our emotions through the lens of our relationship with the Earth invites others to do the same. The creative process can affect our well being and is a key to human evolution.
A woman with indiginous roots in her 40s goes on a trip into her past: When she was four years old she had been taken away from her mother by the canadian authorities, like many others. This is her very sad story as an example for many others.
Anita Chitaya has a gift: she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and maybe she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home in Malawi from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real. Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, she meets climate sceptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions that shape the USA: from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, and to the American exceptionalism that remains a part of the culture. It will take all her skill and experience to help Americans recognise, and free themselves from, a logic that is already destroying the Earth.
A scenic documentary record of a climb up to Mount Assiniboine, the 'American Matterhorn' in the Canadian Rockies.
In this revealing study of Norval Morrisseau, filmed as he works among the lakes and woodlands of his ancestors, we see a remarkable Indigenous artist who emerged from a life of obscurity in the North American bush to become one of Canada's most renowned painters. Morrisseau the man is much like his paintings: vital and passionate, torn between his Ojibway heritage and the influences of the white man's world.
In this searing documentary, Indigenous people share heartbreaking stories that reveal the injustices inflicted by the Canadian child welfare system.
Come and meet the achievements of the biological corridor between the Susua and Maricao forests of the "Puerto Rico Joint Chiefs' Landscape Restoration Partnership"
Under Dorchester Square in Montreal lies the cemetery where 55,000 people were buried in the 19th century. The square is still at the heart of social conflicts in Quebec, 150 years later.
This documentary film follows farmers and activists fighting together to stop the Indiana Enterprise Center, a mega-sized industrial park planned west of South Bend, Indiana
Can you learn French in six months? We followed people from all over the world, including Ukraine, China, and Iran, who attempted to do just that in a French immersion program at Cégep du Vieux Montréal. We delve into their learning journey, their daily lives, and the unique stories that led them to rebuild their lives in Quebec.
For 20-year-old Madison Stewart, nothing feels safer or more natural than diving straight into shark-infested waters. Since childhood, growing up by the Great Barrier Reef, she's treated these predators as family. But they're vanishing from existence, and because of their bad reputation, few people seem to care. Follow Madison on her mission to protect our sharks, a battle that began when she put her studies on hold, grabbed a camera, and set out to save these incredible, misunderstood creatures.
Will Cubans be able to safeguard their heritage of pristine Nature and preserved ecological treasures under this new era, as they are facing the combined pressure of money and tourism? What policies can be implemented to maintain the island’s spectacular wilderness?
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.
Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
Canadian actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley investigates certain secrets related to her mother, interviewing a group of family members and friends whose reliability varies depending on their implication in the events, which are remembered in different ways; so a trail of questions remains to be answered, because memory is always changing and the discovery of truth often depends on who is telling the tale.
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
Born to Be Wild observes various orphaned jungle animals and their day-to-day behavioural interactions with the individuals who rescue them and raise them to adulthood. The film unfurls in two separate geographic spheres. Half of it takes place in the rain forests of Borneo, where celebrated primatologist Dr. Birute Galdikas assists baby orangutans; the other half takes place on the arid savannahs of Kenya, where zoologist Dame Daphne Sheldrick works with baby elephant calves.
A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.
Nine filmmakers each profile a young girl from a different part of the world to weave a global tapestry of youth in the 21st century.
Roddy McDowall takes you, film by film, from production meetings to make-up sessions, then right onto the movie set to see the actual filming of the science fiction masterpiece. The most comprehensive history of Planet of the Apes ever created, this fascinating 127-minute documentary explores one of the most imaginative and influential series in movie history.
An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.
Disneynature’s Elephant follows African elephant Shani and her spirited son Jomo as their herd make an epic journey hundreds of miles across the vast Kalahari Desert. Led by their great matriarch, Gaia, the family faces brutal heat, dwindling resources and persistent predators, as they follow in their ancestors’ footsteps on a quest to reach a lush, green paradise.
The evolution of the depiction of the various Native American peoples in cinema, from the silent era to the present day: how their image on the screen has changed the way to understand their history and culture.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
Ranjit, a farmer in India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the victim of a brutal gang rape. His decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.
Passionate about ocean life, a filmmaker sets out to document the harm that humans do to marine species — and uncovers an alarming global conspiracy.
A look behind the lens of Christopher Nolan's space epic.
Capturing Avatar is a feature length behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Avatar. It uses footage from the film's development, as well as stock footage from as far back as the production of Titanic in 1995. Also included are numerous interviews with cast, artists, and other crew members. The documentary was released as a bonus feature on the extended collector's edition of Avatar.
The story lives forever in this feature-length documentary that charts the making of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Follows the story of "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in his attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.
