Belle famille

Back to the Land(fr)

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).

Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment(en)

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.

Friday: About Cars(en)

"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

Cesar's Bark Canoe(fr)

"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

The Things I Cannot Change(en)

"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

Little Burgundy(fr)

"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

Michel Brault, l'instinct de vue(fr)

Matthew Polly On "Game Of Death"(en)

Matthew Polly analyzes the film and its impact

Among the Wolves(fr)

A vast, snow-covered forest, untouched by human presence. Two men cross it, bags on their backs, cross a frozen river and finally arrive at the peatland, a vast white expanse. For years, Yves the painter and Olivier the photographer, have traveled the world, meeting wildlife from one pole to the other, privileged and concerned witnesses to the fragile beauty of the planet. But the two men share a common dream: to see a wolf pack live, grow, and spread out. One day, their search leads them to a hideout in no-man's-land between Iceland and Russia, a place conducive to a different temporality. The wait begins. Over the seasons, they will stand there in these eight square meters of wood, silent amid an unchanging scenery, until they gradually become part of the “picture” and immerse themselves in the life of the wolves. A motionless adventure...

L'Olympia, du rêve à la scène(fr)

From Abdul To Leila(fr)

After losing part of her memory in an accident, Leila, a young French woman of Iraqi origin, reconstructs her story by reconnecting with her family and exploring her roots. Through music and cinema, she brings her exiled father's poems to lite, dis-covers the reality of the Middle East, and embarks on a personal quest to understand her identity and find her voice.

Umoja - Wo nur Frauen das Sagen haben(de)

Sunspot(en)

Sunspot (2023) shows two lives and two observatories, one in Los Angeles, one in Tokyo. Using archival imagery, the film tells the tale of two sunspot observers both making drawings of the same sun on the day the Hiroshima bomb killed 100,000 people on August 6th, 1945. The film reflects on the forms and uses of light, from the light reflecting in a mirror to look at the sun and into space, the white hollow light of the bomb, and the light shone through the old film footage to create the image we see now. The huge wildfire that threatened Los Angeles’ Mount Wilson Observatory becomes a mirror of the huge clouds and destruction from the atomic bomb.

Love Is Blind Brazil: After the Altar(pt)

Drama, closure and rekindled flames collide as cast members from past seasons of "Love is Blind Brazil" come together in this special reunion episode.

Our National Parks: A Seasonal Tour(en)

Our National Parks takes you on a journey through the four seasons and the many faces of our scenic national parks. Experience an array of lands and waters from Alaska's glacier-clad Denali to the turquoise coves and coral reefs of the Virgin Islands; from the fire of Hawaii Volcanoes to the coolness of Kentucky's Mammoth Cave; from the moonscapes of South Dakota's Badlands to the granite shores of Maine's Acadia. With award-winning filmmaker Wolfgang Bayer you get an in-depth tour of nine of the most popular national parks plus a seasonal overview of many more.

Der Stolz der dänischen Flotte – Die Gribshunden(fr)

John Singer Sargent: Fashion and Swagger(en)

Filmed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Tate Britain, London, the exhibition reveals Sargent’s power to express distinctive personalities, power dynamics and gender identities during this fascinating period of cultural reinvention. Alongside 50 paintings by Sargent sit stunning items of clothing and accessories worn by his subjects, drawing the audience into the artist’s studio. Sargent’s sitters were often wealthy, their clothes costly, but what happens when you turn yourself over to the hands of a great artist? The manufacture of public identity is as controversial and contested today as it was at the turn of the 20th century, but somehow Sargent’s work transcends the social noise and captures an alluring truth with each brush stroke.

Abiding Nowhere(zh)

The walker with the shaved head and dressed in a red robe is barefoot. He walks slowly but determinedly through the forest, over stones and grassland. He also makes his way through the shadows of trees and houses. He sets foot in the train station, the church and the museum. The sun rises and sets again. The walker passes through Washington, D.C. Another stranger is also on the move in the city. We are unsure whether or not he is following the walker.

1917 - Jahr der Entscheidung(de)

Four documentary scenes with subtitles document the year 1917 as the beginning of a new era. In addition to the military situation and the supply situation in Germany, the intervention of the USA and the events in Russia are shown in particular.

East German Schlager is dead. Long live the East German Schlager!(de)

Siegfried "Siggi" Trzoß, a radio moderator from East Berlin, is working tirelessly leading up to his anniversary and 900th show. The music his heart burns for is East German Schlager, a genre politically ignored at first and widely forgotten now. But Siggi keeps the dream alive to this day, making the hearts of seniors jump higher in nostalgia all over east Germany.