September 30, 2015 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
The NFB will be at MIPCOM (October 5‒8), the world’s entertainment content market, with a strong fall lineup that includes acclaimed releases, just launched at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), as well as a slate of just-signed deals.
Fresh from its success at TIFF, acclaimed director Mina Shum’s NFB documentary feature Ninth Floor revisits an infamous 1969 riot at Montreal’s Concordia University that captured international headlines and was a watershed moment in race relations history. Visual artist and filmmaker Mark Lewis dazzles us with a dynamic tour of cityscapes, shot over a period of two years in Paris, São Paulo and Toronto, in the NFB-co-produced feature Invention―a loving homage to the City Symphony films of the 1920s.
Short films just launched at TIFF include film critic and author Katherine Monk’s directorial debut, Rock the Box, a documentary look at LA-based DJ Rhiannon Rozier’s struggle to break into the male-dominated world of electronic dance music, as well as BAM, the latest animation from Howie Shia, whose 2006 NFB short Flutter made anime history as the first-ever work from outside Asia to win the coveted Open Entries Grand Prize at the Tokyo Anime Awards.
Signed deals that the NFB is bringing to MIPCOM include Patricio Henríquez’s Uyghurs: Prisoners of the Absurd, the incredible story of how members of China’s Uyghur minority were held illegally at Guantánamo for 11 long years. The film has already been sold to seven countries, including Canada, Turkey, and Denmark, as well as to Al Jazeera.
Hadwin’s Judgement has been picked up by Universum Film for all rights for Germany. Based on a best-selling book by Vancouver author John Vaillant, Sasha Snow’s spellbinding hybrid drama/documentary feature chronicles BC logging engineer and survivalist Grant Hadwin’s emotional crusade against clear-cutting―which ends in a shocking, illegal act you won’t believe.
Arab satellite TV channel Alaraby TV has picked up five NFB titles, including Helene Klodawsky’s latest documentary, Grassroots in Dry Lands, focusing on three unconventional social workers in Jordan, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, united by a common vision that transcends the antagonisms between their countries; as well as Alberta Noke’s Imagined States of America, which takes on the big myths about the United States to get at the heart of a country that continues to fascinate the world.
Following its world premiere at Sundance, Sophie Deraspe’s multi-award-winning The Amina Profile continues to attract interest from markets around the world. Already sold in several territories, including the US and France, this feature documentary is part love story, part international thriller, and a gripping chronicle of an unprecedented media and sociological hoax.
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Jennifer Mair
Publicist
Tel.: 416-954-2045
Cell: 416-436-0105
E-mail: j.mair@nfb.ca
Twitter: @NFB_Jennifer
Lily Robert
Director, Communications, Marketing and Public Affairs
Tel.: 514-283-3838
Cell: 514-296-8261
E-mail: l.robert@nfb.ca
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.
