National Film Board of Canada

I

Introduction

National Film Board of Canada (NFB), Canadian government-sponsored film studio, which produces and distributes films and other audiovisual works. Its mandate from the Canadian government is “to interpret Canada to Canadians and the rest of the world.” The NFB has been an important creative force in film art and technology and is best known for its innovative documentary and animated films.

II

Founding

The Canadian government created the NFB in 1939. At that time, the Canadian film industry was insignificant, producing few feature films in a market dominated by the United States. The NFB was created to improve government film productions and increase its distribution. Under its first commissioner, renowned British documentarian John Grierson, the NFB soon began producing its own films. The first of these were patriotic propaganda designed to support the Canadian effort in World War II (1939-1945), including the notable Canada Carries On series, which lasted from 1940 to 1960. In 1941 Scottish animator Norman McLaren joined the NFB, when it broadened its scope to include the animated films for which it became world famous.

In its early years the NFB cultivated an anonymous, public-service approach to filmmaking. By the end of the war, however, filmmakers with distinctive personal styles began to challenge the NFB’s approach, and in 1947 directors began to receive individual credits on their films for the first time. McLaren's whimsical animations, often created by drawing directly on the frames of the film, inspired a spirit of technical and creative experimentation that extended beyond the animation department.

In the 1940s and 1950s the NFB distributed its own films in theaters, libraries, and schools, even sending projectionists to hold screenings in factories and farming communities. By the mid-1950s, the Film Board made about half of its productions for television. In 1955 NFB headquarters moved from Ottawa, Ontario, to a new building in Montréal, Québec, with its own studios, special effects facilities, and processing lab.

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Despite its location in Canada’s major French-speaking city, the NFB did not establish an autonomous French-language production studio until 1964. At that time, it created separate French and English production departments in response to pressure from Québec filmmakers.

III

Productions

In 1963 the NFB produced its first dramatic feature film, Drylanders. Many notable dramatic features followed, particularly from the French-speaking sector. Claude Jutra's Mon Oncle Antoine (1971, also released as My Uncle Antoine) was internationally successful and was proclaimed the best Canadian film of all time at the Toronto Film Festival in 1984. Le déclin de l’empire américain (1986, also released as The Decline of the American Empire), by director Denys Arcand, received eight Genie awards and an Academy Award nomination for best foreign film. The NFB’s English-language features were characterized by their roots in documentary filmmaking. Giles Walker's 90 Days (1985), John N. Smith's The Boys of St. Vincent (1992), and Cynthia Scott's The Company of Strangers (1990, also released as Strangers in Good Company) received international recognition for their realism and for compelling performances by nonprofessional actors.

NFB filmmakers have also been significant innovators in the documentary form. Wolf Koenig and Colin Low's City of Gold (1957) pioneered the use of archival photographs to dramatize history. In the late 1950s and early 1960s Canadian filmmakers at the NFB, along with filmmakers in France, England, and the United States, developed cinéma vérité, the revolutionary documentary style characterized by mobile camerawork and an absence of narration.

The NFB remains one of the world's most important centers for animation. Several of its classics, such as Eugene Fedorenko's Every Child (1979) and Co Hoedeman's The Sand Castle (1977), have received Academy Awards for animation. The Film Board has had an ongoing interest in technological innovation, making important advances in 3-D and IMAX filmmaking, computer animation, video discs, and multiscreen installations. In the 1990s the NFB started to produce interactive media for the educational market.

The National Film Board is a public agency supposedly independent from political interference. Yet members of the Canadian Parliament have complained about several NFB documentaries on sensitive issues. The NFB withdrew a number of radical Québécois documentaries after the October Crisis of 1970 in Québec, in which separatist terrorists kidnapped and murdered a government official. In a later incident, the NFB defended Brian and Terence McKenna’s three-part documentary The Valour and the Horror (1992), which was critical of Canadian military actions during World War II, despite threats from Parliament to cut NFB funding. Other controversies have come from outside Canada: In 1983 the U.S. government branded Terre Nash's antinuclear documentary If You Love This Planet (1982) 'a propaganda film by agents of a foreign government' and curtailed its distribution in the United States. Nevertheless, the film won an Academy Award for best short documentary that year.

IV

Other Activities

Social experiments too have been important throughout the NFB's history. The NFB has encouraged women and minorities with such grassroots programs as Challenge for Change (1967-1980), a documentary series about social issues; Studio D, known as the Women's Studio; and training and production opportunities for freelancers. The NFB also established regional NFB production centers across the country to support a community focus.

In 1995 the Canadian government announced significant funding cutbacks for the NFB. The NFB responded by curtailing its production of fictional features and narrowing its focus to documentary, educational, and animated works.

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