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.

2000-06-09 | en

Belle famille

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

1978-07-11 | fr

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

1978-01-01 | en

Cesar's Bark Canoe

"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

1971-01-01 | fr

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

1967-01-01 | en

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

1968-01-01 | fr

Michel Brault, l'instinct de vue

| fr

Empire of Madness

Don’t be misled by the title and put your lube away: True Gore II (aka Empire of Madness) (1989)–M Dixon Causey’s follow-up to the eponymous first entry–has virtually no true gore in it at all. Instead, the first half is a compilation of faux-snuff vignettes akin to something you’d find in a SOV horror collection like Snuff Perversions 1 & 2, Snuff Files, The Dead Files, Violations I & II, or even more recent titles like Murder Collection Volume 1. The second half is in turn a send-up of satanic panic style videos like Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults, Devil Worship: The Rise Of Satanism, and countless others shat out during the 80s/90s. The vignettes are hilariously inept to the point where it seems clear that Causey was parodying the shockumentary form. Even the credits are a joke, mocking the seriousness with which shocku producers take themselves, crediting a ‘researcher’ for a film that clearly had none, and a ‘visual archivist’ being listed in place of a cameraman.

1989-01-01 | en

Still Here

Brings together the existential ponderings of the people around us who most deserve to be listened to, those who have lived the longest. We travel the world hearing memories of love and loss, of joy and hardship.

2016-10-28 | es

Junge Leute

A documentary about young people just starting their higher education and their professional life.

1971-04-16 | de

20,000 Miles on a Horse

This Feature documentary is about the lives of Louis Brunke and Vladimir Fissenko who rode on horseback from the southern tip of Argentina to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. It took them five years to cross 14 countries -- and they filmed it all.

2007-04-15 | en

Film Magazine of the Arts

"In Spring, 1963 Show Magazine called me and asked that I make a film on arts in New York. I told them, why did they want me to make it - didn't they know I was a bit unusual? ... 'We want something unusual,' they said. So I went out and made a newsreel on arts. Show people looked at the rough cut of the film and became very angry. 'But there is nothing about Show Magazine and DuPont fabrics in the movie,' they said. 'What has that to do with the arts in New York!' I said. The battle was short. The film was destroyed. Really, I have no idea what they did with it. This workprint of the first FILM MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS is the only print in existence, as far as I know." -- J.M.

1965-07-02 | en

The Connected Universe

This fascinating journey of exploration of the connection of all things in the Universe is narrated by the legendary Sir Patrick Stewart. The film explores the mechanism of connection of all things in the Universe.

2016-10-31 | en

s-yéwyáw: Awaken

Stories of hope and homecoming intersect as Indigenous multimedia changemakers learn and document the teachings of their Elders. Ecko Aleck of the Nlaka'pamux Nation (Lytton, BC,) Alfonso Salinas of the shíshálh Nation (Sunshine Coast, BC,) and Charlene SanJenko of Splatsin of the Secwépemc Nation (Shuswap, BC,) are learning and documenting the traditional cultural teachings and legacies of their Elders, including the impacts of genocide resulting from Canada's Indian Residential School (IRS) system. Calling the audience's attention to the filmmaking process of narrative collaboration between an Indigenous and settler team, this character-driven documentary connects the transformative stories of three Indigenous multimedia changemakers and their four Elders. Infused by Indigenous ceremony, s-yéwyáw: Awaken walks alongside the process of intergenerational healing.

2023-10-13 | en

War Tails

The Russian invasion of Ukraine created an avalanche of abandoned dogs and cats that are now multiplying causing unforeseen consequences.

2024-06-30 | en

"WŁODZIMIERZ"

2024-03-19 | pl

Hoa

Before her memory disorder develops, a Vietnamese grandmother maps out her life in a memoir.

2022-01-01 | vi

The Brando Interregnum: The Decade of Marlon's Dirty Dozen 1962-1972

Between One Eyed Jacks (1961) and The Godfather (1972), Marlon Brando appeared in twelve feature films. The actor called this period his "F*** You Years" and it was during this time that his on-set behavior hit erratic and unpredictable new heights. The qualities of the roles and the films themselves vary, but this video essay examines the historical and aesthetic profiles of this cinematic so-called "dirty dozen." Were these projects really beneath him? And what led him to this decade of perceived ignominy?

2022-12-28 | en

Kino-Pravda No. 6

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Streetcar collision / Arms manufacturing plant resumes operation / Assembling an automobile / Bicycle and motorcycle races / A parade of Red Army armored units and an attack exercise.

1922-07-14 | xx

Ballin' Outta Control

Take to the sky... and SMASH on any sucka caught sleepin'... Drop a dime for a rim bendin' alley oop... Crossover and blow past your man. Is basketball your life? Is ball more than just a game? Then you gotta have this street ball classic. Ballin' Outta Control, the follow-up to the double platinum Ball Above All, has combined the most ridiculous moves ever caught on video. Check out the hottest dunks and crosses ever seen hooked up with the bangin'est hip-hop beats. Nonstop highlights of the REAL best athletes in the world from New York, D.C., Atlanta, L.A., Chicago, Philly, North Carolina, and more. You heard it here, straight from the streets. Ballin' Outta Control is the hottest sh*# ever! 46 minutes.

2002-02-19 | en