The NFB at the 2025 Festival du nouveau cinéma . Alex Boya’s animated short Bread Will Walk (Le pain se lève) making its Quebec premiere in competition.

September 23, 2025 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

The National Film Board of Canada returns to Montreal’s Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC) with Bread Will Walk (Le pain se lève), directed by Bulgarian-born Montreal filmmaker Alex Boya, presented in competition and as a Quebec premiere. Local audiences will at last have the chance to view this darkly delicious slice of satire on the big screen, following its screenings at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Actor Jay Baruchel lends his voice to all the characters in the original English version, which will be shown at the FNC with French subtitles.

The festival will also feature special screenings of Virginia Tangvald’s Les enfants du large (Ghosts of the Sea, micro_scope / NFB / Urban Factory), screening with closed captions for hearing-impaired people, and the NFB classics Le chat dans le sac (The Cat in the Bag, 1964) by Gilles Groulx and Mon amie Pierrette (1968) by Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, in the Histoire(s) du cinéma section.

The 54th FNC takes place in Montreal from October 8 to 19, 2025.

Les nouveaux alchimistes Short Film Competition

Bread Will Walk (Le pain se lève) d’Alex Boya (NFB, 11 min 17 s) – QUEBEC PREMIERE
Press Kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/bread-will-walk

• A devoted sister flees with her brother, a benevolent, bread-turned zombie. A mob pursues, mouths agape. Streets twist into mazes, reason dissolves, hunger reigns. Can love defy appetite?

• This frenetic, surrealist satire, designed as a continuous shot, was born of director Alex Boya’s reflection on overconsumption and its dehumanizing effects. Subverting the symbolism of bread, Boya created a parable in which a staple food becomes propaganda, and love tries to defy hunger.

• Bread Will Walk was produced by Jelena Popović, newly invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Accessible screenings

Les enfants du large (Ghosts of the Sea) by Virginia Tangvald (micro_scope/NFB/Urban Factory, 97 min)
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/ghosts-of-the-sea
Schedule: Saturday, October 18, 10:30 a.m., NFB’s Alanis Obomsawin Theatre – with closed captions for hearing-impaired people

• While searching for clues about the death of her brother Thomas, who was lost at sea, the filmmaker embarks on a fascinating investigation into her family’s dark secrets. Calling into question the idyllic life of her father, legendary sailor Peter Tangvald, her quest dismantles the myth of absolute freedom.

• The film won the TV5 Audience Award at the 2024 FNC.

Histoire(s) du cinéma

Le chat dans le sac (The Cat in the Bag) by Gilles Groulx (NFB, 1964, 73 min)
Presented as part of a tribute to Barbara Ulrich

A seminal work of Quebec cinema, starring Claude Godbout and Barbara Ulrich, with music by John Coltrane.

Mon amie Pierrette by Jean-Pierre Lefebvre (NFB, 1968, 68 min)
Presented as part of a tribute to the filmmaker

A remarkable work by a major filmmaker, the film features the debut of a key figure in the performing arts in Quebec, Raoul Duguay.

Special Presentation

Écothérapie: journal d’un cataclysme by Cédric Chabuel (Radio-Canada OHdio)
Presented by Radio-Canada in collaboration with the NFB
Schedule: Friday, October 10, 7:30 p.m., NFB’s Alanis Obomsawin Theatre

• The immersive audio fiction work Écothérapie will be presented as a group listening experience for the first time. Radio-Canada called on experts at the NFB for the mastering in Dolby ATMOS theatrical. In French.
• Preceded by the animated short Marche-dans-la-forêt (Walk-in-the-Forest) by Diane Obomsawin (NFB, 2009, 3 min).

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