Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment

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.

Back to the Land

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).

The Things I Cannot Change

"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

"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

Belle famille

A working class family leaves St-Henri quarter in Montréal to build a new home in the countryside.

Michel Brault, l'instinct de vue

Friday: About Cars

"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

Kinokinokino

What was cinema in the past? What is cinema today? Hamburg filmmaker Dennis Albrecht asked himself these questions as he sifted through material he had been collecting since a project idea in 2008. Since then, he has repeatedly taken cameras into cinemas that no longer exist. He shot commercials, short films or events at the Grindel-Kino, Streit's, Rialto and Savoy and many other Hamburg movie theaters. In these personal perspectives, we see many cultural places that have disappeared.

Soldier’s Fortune

Documentary about the first German foreign deployment of German soldiers in Kosovo since the Second World War in 1995.

Mangas, une révolution française

2021 served as a revelation for the last holdouts: thanks to confinement and the “Culture Pass”, manga sales and streaming anime viewing hours have exploded. These are today the dominant cultural works among young people. In truth, the trend has already been present for at least ten years. However, not so long ago, criticisms were rife and politicians accused manga of all evils. For the first time, precursors and current generations, cartoonists and publishers, absolute fans and rappers speak about their passion for these comics from Japan.

Picturing Elizabeth: Her Life in Images

Sophie Raworth explores the stories behind some of the most famous and era-defining pictures of the Queen, and shows how they chart our changing relationship with the monarchy.

Elizabeth: Fashioning a Monarch

In this special tribute Fiona Bruce looks at how, across the decades, The Queen used her wardrobe to fashion a style that came to perfectly reflect her dedication to duty.

Viejo Hotel Ostende

Mariano Llinás makes, at the request of the Viejo Hotel Ostende, a portrait of the Hotel's future over its 110 years of history

A Tribute to HRH Duke of Edinburgh

The remarkable life story of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, the man who stood beside the Queen for over 70 years. Featuring interviews with those who knew him best.

Les sentiers culturels

On sourira de nous

Four friends tired of protests are thinking about another way to shake up capitalist society. Driven by fiction, they decide to blow up a Brussels shopping center. How to think the attack? What roles do they need to play in order to imagine taking action? Is their friendship reconcilable with such a radical act?

5 Seasons of Revolution

Lina’s plan was simple. She wanted to become a camerawoman. She liked filming details of life and people around her, mainly during a bright sunny day in Damascus. But with the uprising in Syria, Lina was slowly absorbed into documenting the impact on people’s lives. It didn’t take long before events escalated, and arrests, torture, and potentially life-threatening situations became a reality for Lina to negotiate on a daily basis. She had to adapt. She invented personas and aliases. They each helped her navigate life under a new norm. What was a simple plan, turned into a complex web of identities, which seemed then a small price in exchange for her liberty to continue to hold the camera.

L.A.P.A.

Documentary about the world of hip hop and the daily life of those who seek to survive from music in Brazil, all set in the traditional neighborhood of Lapa Carioca.

Diary of a Teenage Nudist

Documentary from the point of view of a now 18 year old girl who grew up in a nudist colony.

Throw Down Your Heart

A film crew follows the well-known banjo player Bela Fleck on his travels to Africa, where he learns about the instrument's origins.

The Things I Cannot Change

"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

Brent Weinbach: Appealing to the Mainstream

Brent Weinbach is weird. In this show, Brent attempts to adjust his quirky personality so that he can fit in with the world around him, which would be valuable to his career as a comedian and entertainer. Through an absurd and abstract discourse, Brent explores the ways in which he can appeal to a broader, mainstream audience, so that ultimately, he can become successful in show business.

Mice and Mystics

The movie will be based on the Plaid Hat tabletop game, created by Jerry Hawthorne, which is a role-playing adventure following players loyal to the king who are imprisoned in a seaside castle and turned into mice by the evil Vanestra. They must fight their way out of the castle as they face dangerous foes including rats, cockroaches, spiders and the castle’s house cat, Brodie.

Místa

A coming of age story about love, loss and revenge centers around two teenage friends, Adam and Marek, whose aimless lives in a small town are suddenly disrupted by the appearance of Anna, the troubled daughter of a rich and influential local businessman. Initially her free spirit energizes Adam but soon he finds himself thrown into a spiraling chain of events. His innocence is about to be abruptly replaced with the adult emotions of guilt, fear and revenge.

Raped On The Beach

A young girl witnesses a violent and ultimately fatal act between her mother and another man and it emotionally scars her for years to come. As a young woman, she takes a vacation with a more worldly girlfriend to Sardinia, and in doing so, attracts the attention of a young man in the village. Despite her interest in the man her haunted past prevents her from developing a normal relationship with him.

Itinéraire d'un enfant placé

Yanie is 14 years old, and the foster family who raised her is retiring. Social services believe that her mother, who is reintegrating after a prison sentence, is not yet able to take her back. So Yanie will move into a new family, with the risk that if things don’t work out, she could end up in a care home. This is an added challenge to all the others she faces, but perhaps also a chance to break away from the old patterns that weigh down her life. The film tries to capture this moment called resilience. Amid the turmoil of her existence, Yanie will develop defense mechanisms.

Paul Smith: Gentleman Designer

An intimate and provoking portrait of Lord Paul Smith, quirky designer and formidable businessman, through exclusive access to a poet of British fashion. Paul Smith has 400 shops and outlets in 35 countries, 12 clothing lines, 400 million Euros in yearly revenues, sales topping Chanel's, partnerships with Evian, Apple, and Austin, and prestigious bicycle and race car brands. The secret of his success? Who is Paul Smith? How has he managed to get millions of men interested in fashion? How did a modest man from Nottingham become synonymous with elegance in men's fashion?

The Police: Synchronicity Concert

Synchronicity tour by the Police, recorded at the Omni in Atlanta, GA, Nov. 1983.

Lickety-Splat

Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner with roller skis, a bow, a rifle, a boomerang, an anvil, and several exploding darts let loose from a balloon.

Great White Odyssey

Follow a deep-sea expedition with world-renowned shark experts Michael Scholl & Ramon Bonfil as they tag a 12-foot great white, named for Nicole Kidman, on an epic journey across an ocean that threatens her survival.

The Circuit III: Street Monk

Following his wife's untimely death, Dirk Longstreet adopts a nomadic lifestyle. He preoccupies himself with surfing, and makes ends meet by participating in brutal underground brawls. Longstreet's leisurely lifestyle is abruptly interrupted when a young girl sold into slavery seeks the fighter's assistance. The child's former captors want her back, and Dirk is prepared to annihilate whoever gets in his way.

Rodantes

A film that chronicles the lives of Tatiane, who leaves São Paulo trying to rebuild her life; Odair, a young man exploring his sexuality after leaving his parental home; and Henry, a Haitian immigrant struggling to survive amid Brazil’s poverty. As chaos unfolds in Rondônia, their paths will cross.

Dongala Mutha

Sudheer and Rani break down near a resort and quickly realize they are in a do or die situation.

Rouges Silences

Here the codes are both amplified and distanced by an expressionist plastic that for the first time perhaps in Expressionism, takes humor into account. Some very close-ups of flowers, insects, are reminiscent of the prose of a Caillois that I did not know until this film equivalent cinema. There is a double movement in this film. At the same time, a sort of restraint of the plans and a bulimia, a frenzy to film, perhaps this is what mainly troubles us and takes us into a way of seeing that was unknown to us.

When Alan Yentob Met Jenny Saville

As a part of a tribute night to broadcaster and television executive Alan Yentob, he interviews leading British artist Jenny Saville. One of the most successful figurative painters working today, she came to prominence as part of the YBA movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She has been reluctant to discuss her work for many years on television, until now. Alan Yentob was working with her on a film for Imagine and caught up with her in Vienna on the eve of two major 2025 exhibitions she is mounting. This was the last interview Alan Yentob conducted in a career spanning six decades at the BBC, bringing many of the world’s leading artists and creatives to the screen. Alan also persuaded Jenny to allow cameras into her painting studio for the first time in almost three decades.

Dangerous Waters

While a ship captain is at sea dealing with a mutiny among his crew, his wife is at home having an affair with his best friend.