September 29, 2015 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
The NFB will make a strong showing at the 44th Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC), taking place from October 7 to 18, 2015, with 11 films and interactive works in the official selection, including 5 in the running in the three main competition categories: “Focus – Feature Film,” “Nouvelles écritures,” and “Focus – Short Film.” The NFB will also play a major role at FNC Pro (October 13 to 15), with four presentations for industry professionals, and one workshop and two animated shorts in the “P’tits Loups” program.
Official Competition for the Focus – Feature Film Grand Prize
After screening at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), Vancouver filmmaker Mina Shum’s Ninth Floor will make its Quebec premiere at the FNC. In her feature documentary directorial debut, Shum re-examines the famed “Sir George Williams Riot,” the most explosive student uprising in Canada’s history, which occurred in 1969 at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in Montreal and marked a turning point in race relations in Canada. Appropriately, the FNC’s venue for the screening is Concordia University’s H110 auditorium, from which the protesters threw dozens of computer punch-cards onto De Maisonneuve Boulevard during the occupation’s final hours, in one of the most symbolic acts of the student protest movements of the 1960s. Ninth Floor is produced by Selwyn Jacob. Shirley Vercruysse is the executive producer for the NFB’s Pacific and Yukon Centre in Vancouver. Selwyn Jacob has wanted to tell this story for decades.
Official Competition in the Focus – Short Film Category
After participating in the Holland Animation Film Festival, Encounters Film Festival (United Kingdom) and VIFF, Theodore Ushev presents Blood Manifesto, which was animated using the filmmaker’s own blood. The film asks whether one should fight for ideals, noble though they may be, if one must die for them in the end. The filmmaker will also provide live commentary during a screening at the festival. In competition in the same category, the poignant short Hey Lou! by John Blouin intertwines life and death, revealing the essence of our humanity in just a few shots. Hey Lou! is part of the 5 Shorts Project, established in collaboration with Spirafilm to create a collection of documentaries that showcase the talent of five filmmakers from different regions of Quebec.
“Nouvelles écritures” Competition
The NFB is presenting two unique and hard-hitting interactive documentary experiences. Making its world premiere, The Deeper They Bury Me by Angad Bhalla and Ted Biggs plunges users into a solitary confinement cell with activist Herman Wallace, one of the most famous political prisoners in the US. Wallace spent 40 years in Louisiana’s Angola penitentiary. Co-produced by Providences, the NFB and ARTE, and created by Antoine Viviani, In Limbo is a web experience that questions what becomes of our individual and collective memory in the digital era. Both works are in the running for the Innovation Award, presented by Urbania.
Out of Competition
The NFB is presenting two web projects from its Digital Studio in Vancouver. Kabul Portraits was created by Montrealer Ariel Nasr and Jeremy Mendes. To celebrate World Bread Day on October 16, discover Bread by Mariette Sluyter, produced for the NFB by Teri Snelgrove, Dana Dansereau (interactive producer) and Loc Dao (executive producer). Six women, six recipes—one universal story.
Les P’tits Loups
An NFB workshop for kids will feature I Love Potatoes, the brand new auteur game by NFB artist-in-residence Vali Fugulin. This slightly absurd, quirky and funny adventure game deals with social innovation and sustainable economy, and has been available worldwide in seven languages since September 24. The films Monsieur Pug by Janet Perlman and If I Was God, Cordell Baker’s first stop-motion film, will be included in P’tits Loups’ program of animated shorts for young audiences.
The NFB will be at the Festival until the very last minute, to co-present the closing film, The Forbidden Room, directed by Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson and produced by Phi Films and Buffalo Gal Pictures with the NFB’s North West Centre.
FNC Pro, for professionals only, October 13 to 15
• Roundtable: Focus on interactive and immersive works with Marie-Pier Gauthier (NFB), Bruno Smadja, Pierre Cattan and Yako.
• I Love Potatoes: Game and sustainable economy with Vali Fugulin (NFB), Ruben Farrus (Minority Media), Patrick Doyon and Louis Richard Tremblay (NFB).
• In Limbo: A guided tour, led by creator Antoine Vivani, of an interactive project that questions what becomes of our individual and collective memory in the digital era. Co-produced by Providences, the NFB and ARTE.
• The Deeper They Bury Me: A meeting with the creators of an interactive portrait challenging a criminal justice system in the United States that keeps 2.3 million citizens behind bars. With Anita Lee, Ted Biggs, and Angad Singh Bhalla.
Ninth Floor, Focus – Feature Film Competition (81 min)
QUEBEC PREMIERE
• Ninth Floor, renowned Vancouver director Mina Shum’s first feature-length documentary, reopens the file on the famous Sir George Williams Riot that took place in 1969 at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in Montreal—a watershed moment in Canadian race relations.
• Ninth Floor is written and directed by Mina Shum, and produced by Selwyn Jacob. Shirley Vercruysse is the executive producer for the NFB’s Pacific and Yukon Centre in Vancouver.
Blood Manifesto, Focus – Short Film Competition (2 min)
QUEBEC PREMIERE
• Literally drawn with Theodore Ushev’s blood, Blood Manifesto is a political statement that asks whether one should fight for ideals, noble though they may be, if one must die for them in the end. Blood Manifesto was directed by Theodore Ushev and produced by Marcy Page and Jelena Popovic. Michael Fukushima is the executive producer at the NFB’s English Animation studio.
Hey Lou!, Focus – Short Film Competition (6 min)
MONTREAL PREMIERE
• Life and death intertwine in this poignant short film by John Blouin that reveals the essence of our humanity in just a few shots.
• Hey Lou! is part of the 2014 edition of the 5 Shorts Project, established by the NFB and produced with Spirafilm, a Quebec co-operative dedicated to independent film.
• Directed by John Blouin and produced by Nathalie Cloutier and Colette Loumède (NFB) and Catherine Benoît (Spirafilm).
The Deeper They Bury Me, “Nouvelles écritures” Competition
CANADIAN PREMIERE
• “I’ve had dreams of getting out of prison—and I was dancing my way out.” Herman Wallace is speaking from Louisiana’s Angola penitentiary, where he’s been kept in solitary confinement for over 40 years. There may be static on the phone line, but the voice is unbroken. The Deeper They Bury Me is an interactive encounter with one of America’s most famous political prisoners. Users are plunged into Wallace’s universe, navigating between his six-by-nine foot cell and the power of his imagination.
• The Deeper They Bury Me is co-produced by Angad Bhalla and Ted Biggs and produced by Anita Lee (NFB).
In Limbo, “Nouvelles écritures” Competition
• Launched in February 2015, In Limbo is an augmented film that integrates Internet users and their data into an experience available on computer or tablet. This innovative interactive work gives us the sensation of actually navigating the grey matter of computer memory.
• In Limbo is directed by Antoine Viviani and co-produced by the NFB (Louis-Richard Tremblay, producer, and Hugues Sweeney, executive producer, Digital Studio, French Program), ARTE France (Gilles Freissinier, Director of the Web Department, Marianne Lévy-Leblond, Head of Web Productions and Transmedia Projects, and Alexander Knetig, Commissioning Editor) and Providences (Antoine Viviani, producer).
The Forbidden Room, Closing film (128 min)
• Directed by Guy Maddin and co-directed by Evan Johnson, The Forbidden Room is written by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Robert Kotyk. The film is produced by Phyllis Laing, Guy Maddin, David Christensen (NFB), Phoebe Greenberg and Penny Mancuso. The executive producers are David Christensen (NFB), Niv Fichman, Jody Shapiro and François-Pierre Clavel. The Forbidden Room is a Phi Films and Buffalo Gal Pictures production in co-production with the NFB’s North West Centre.
• The Forbidden Room grew out of Maddin’s interactive NFB project, Seances, an immersive web experience that resurrects and recombines lost films from the silent era. Maddin previously worked with the NFB on Night Mayor (2009), commissioned to mark the NFB’s 70th anniversary, and his short film Nude Caboose (2006), part of the NFB’s pioneering mobile series Shorts in Motion: The Art of Seduction.
Kabul Portraits, Out of Competition
WORLD PREMIERE
• Afghan storytellers inhabit a fragmented cultural landscape, where years of conflict have bred both frustration and ingenuity.
• By Ariel Maser and Jeremy Mendes, produced for the NFB by Annette Clarke (producer) and Loc Dao (executive producer).
Bread, by Mariette Sluyter, Out of Competition
• New interactive documentary that invites you to meet six women—whose unique bread recipes reflect their culture, heritage and family history—and then try to bake your own bread!
• By Mariette Sluyter, produced for the NFB by Teri Snelgrove, Dana Dansereau (interactive producer) and Loc Dao (executive producer).
Monsieur Pug, directed by Janet Perlman, Les P’tits Loups (2014, 10 min)
• Monsieur Pug is a paranoid pooch who’s convinced that smartphones are the instruments of a vast conspiracy...
• Produced by Marc Bertrand at the NFB.
If I Was God, directed by Cordell Barker, Les P’tits Loups (8 min 30 s)
• If I Was God takes us back to the time when the filmmaker was in grade school and let himself be carried away by fabulous dreams of power.
• Produced by Michael Fukushima and David Christensen at the NFB.
I Love Potatoes, a game by Vali Fugulin, Les P’tits Loups
• This slightly absurd, funny and quirky adventure game deals with social innovation and sustainable economy issues, and is geared to 9-to-12-year-olds, their parents and grandparents. The stages of social change are brought about through a playful journey that leads to intergenerational discussions on how to find ways to change the world... one small gesture at a time.
• Available in seven languages: French, Quebec French, English, Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese.
• A game by NFB artist-in-residence Vali Fugulin, in co-creation with Minority, available for free, worldwide, on tablets and mobile devices (IOS and Android) in the App Store, Google Play Store and on Amazon.
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The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) creates groundbreaking interactive works, social-issue documentaries and auteur animation. The NFB has produced over 13,000 productions and won over 5,000 awards, including 14 Canadian Screen Awards, 11 Webbys, 12 Oscars and more than 90 Genies. To access acclaimed NFB content, visit NFB.ca or download its apps for smartphones, tablets and connected TV.
