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The National Film Board Shines At Hot Docs and Cannes

Written by Catherine Kustanczy Thursday, 14 May 2009 15:47

Fresh off their quadruple victory at this year’s edition of Hot Docs, the National Film Board of Canada is set to storm the Croisette when the annual Cannes Film Festival opens this Wednesday.

The NFB was honoured this past weekend when they took home four prizes at the Hot Docs Awards Presentation Friday evening. For the third year in a row, the organization took home awards for Best Canadian Feature and Special Jury Prize –Canadian Feature.

Invisible City, which won the Best Canadian Feature Award, traces the lives of Kendell and Mikey, two children living in the economically-depressed Regent Park area of downtown Toronto. The film is directed by Academy Award nominee Hubert Davis, and examines the choices the pair of kids face as their surroundings are transformed and altered.

Waterlife, which was honoured with the Special Jury Prize for a Canadian Feature, examines the sustainability and impact of the last huge supply of fresh water on earth, tracing the body of water that flows from Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean. Directed by Kevin McMahon, and narrated by Gord Downie, the popular lead singer of band The Tragically Hip, the film is a graceful, poetic look at nature in action. The soundtrack also features the sounds of Canadians Sam Roberts and Robbie Robertson, as well as the ethereal landscapes of Sigur Ros and Brian Eno.

Filmmaker Brett Gaylor was recognized for his work, RiP: A Remix Manifesto, about the battle for intellectual property rights in the age of peer-to-peer file sharing. Gaylor shared the Don Haig Award with Tracey Deer for Club Native. The prize is awarded annually to an emerging Canadian documentary filmmaker. It comes with a $20,000 prize, which was split this year between Gaylor and Deer.

As previously announced, native Canadian filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin was given the Outstanding Achivement Award for a body of work that includes over 30 films. Obamsawin’s work has always focused on giving a voice to her own marginalized community, and the National Film Board has always been a strong supporter and partner in producing her work. She made a series of films about the 1990 Oka uprising, the first of which, Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, went on to win numerous international honours and awards.

So with four recent awards under their belt, the NFB now heads to Cannes with one world-premier –the animated short Runaway –as well as a prominent place in the business-focused Marché Du Film section of the festival. Runaway is directed by Cordell Barker, whose best-known work is the animated short The Cat Came Back, which won the director worldwide acclaim and an Academy Award nomination. His latest work will have its world-premiere during International Critics Week.

Government Film Commissioner and NFB Chairperson Tom Perlmutter will be the guest of honour at a variety of events at the Marché, where the organization’s seventy-year history of production and creation will be marked at a brunch on May 17th.

Perlmutter will begin the proceedings by presenting excerpts taken from Pepita Ferrari’s Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary, a work highlighting the creative processes of no less than thirty-three master documentary filmmakers from fourteen countries, combining their work in a fascinating mix of footage, interviews, and memorable moments, past and present. The following day, Perlmutter will be the guest of honour at the Producers’ Network breakfast, where he will be discussing innovation in the digital era.

It’s a logical extension then, that the NFB will join forces with a symbol of that digital era; it’ll be teaming up with Youtube for the fifth year in a row for the Short Film Competition. Until May 20, the public can view the ten finalists chosen from over 1,400 entries and cast their votes for their favourite entries. The winning filmmaker will receive an HD MINI-DV camera and a laptop with editing suite, presented by Tom Perlmutter on May 21 at the Short Film Corner.

The Cannes Film Festival runs May 13th through 24th.