The Face of a City (2021)

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

Fire in Paradise

In this documentary, survivors recall the catastrophic 2018 Camp Fire, which razed the town of Paradise and became California’s deadliest wildfire.

Until Further Notice

With his industry on lockdown and no end in sight, Toronto chef Luke Donato tries to keep his culinary passion alive during the COVID-19 pandemic - even if it means teaching a group of misfits online.

Casablanca revisitada

A lyrical and nostalgic analysis of how Casablanca, the mythical film directed by Michael Curtiz in 1942, has influenced both film history and pop culture.

Land Without Bread

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Viramundo

Viramundo shows the saga of the northeastern migrants that arrive in São Paulo, beginning with a train arriving and ending with a train leaving São Paulo in a cycle repeated every day. Viramundo's aim was to question why the military coup d'état in Brazil happened without any popular resistance or revolution or reaction of the society.

Flora

A metacinematic reflection on the nature of representation and the ongoing drug war in Mexico, Nicolás Pereda’s Flora revisits locations and scenes from the mainstream 2010 narco-comedy El Infierno, exploring the paradoxes of depicting narco-trafficking on film—its tendency both to romanticize and to obscure. To screen is both to project and to conceal.

Lesser Choices

The bleached palette and home-movie aesthetics of Super 8 footage provide the image track for this testimonial about an illegal abortion in Mexico City in the 1960s, delivered in voiceover by the filmmaker’s mother. In its account of this intimate and disorienting memory, Lesser Choices summons a time of profound uncertainty—a moment from an era without rights—and offers a warning to the present.

Oaxacalifornia: The Return

The Mejia family emigrated from Oaxaca to Fresno, California 40 years ago. Filmmaker Trisha ZIff filmed the family in 1996, and returns now to see the changes that have settled over them, and follows the family on their return to Mexico.

Hell

Chennu committed his first crime when he was 15 years old: being a street kid. And he entered hell: Pademba Road. The adult prison in Freetown. In hell, Mr. Sillah is in charge, and there is no hope. Chennu got out after four years. Now he wants to go back.

A Night at the Garden

Archival footage of an American Nazi rally that attracted 20,000 people at Madison Square Garden in 1939, shortly before the beginning of World War II.

Infancia desterrada

Every year, tens of thousands of children are forced to leave their countries unaccompanied by an adult.

Mystery of the Nile

Filmed in IMAX, a team of explorers led by Pasquale Scaturro and Gordon Brown face seemingly insurmountable challenges as they make their way along all 3,260 miles of the world's longest and deadliest river to become the first in history to complete a full descent of the Blue Nile from source to sea.

Volcanoes of the Deep Sea

12,000 feet down, life is erupting. Alvin, a deep-sea mechanized probe, makes a voyage some 12,000 feet underwater to explore the Azores, a constantly-erupting volcanic rift between Europe and North America.

Blue Planet

From the unique vantage point of 200 miles above Earth's surface, we see how natural forces - volcanoes, earthquakes and hurricanes - affect our world, and how a powerful new force - humankind - has begun to alter the face of the planet. From Amazon rain forests to Serengeti grasslands, Blue Planet inspires a new appreciation of life on Earth, our only home.

Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag

Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag follows American F-15 Eagle pilot John Stratton as he trains with some of the world’s best pilots. The movie depicts Stratton’s progression through the challenging and dangerous exercises of Operation Red Flag, the international training program for air forces of allied countries.

Bears

From polar bears in the arctic tundra to black bears in the Northern Rockies, you'll see some of the most spectacular footage ever shot of these enterprising omnivores. Catch salmon with a group of hungry grizzlies on the McNeil River in Alaska. Crawl inside a den with a mother black bear and her cubs. Learn about the challenges facing each of these species as their habitat diminishes.

Exploring the Reef

Jean-Michael Cousteau's documentary about the Great Barrier Reef keeps getting interrupted by characters from Disney's Finding Nemo.

Convicts

The short registers a sports spectacle of great importance (probably of soccer). We never see the spectacle itself but the people watching and reacting at the stadium.

The Wire

The inhabitants of the canyon of river Kupa, located on the border between Croatia and Slovenia, have historically been united due to their harsh living conditions, but this peaceful cohabitation between members of different cultures is threatened by the construction of iron fences to prevent the transit of refugees from Bosnia.

Notes on a True Story

On the evening of March 11, 1950, Annabella Bracci, a 12-year-old girl, was brutally killed and thrown into a pit on the outskirts of Rome, near the village of Primavalle. A brief and poetic account of the events and their impact on an impoverished community. A handful of wild flowers and a painful catch in the voices.

Shotplayer

"Shotplayer" is an impressionistic journey into the mind of Wilfred Rose, one of New York City's most notorious pickpockets. As he returns to the subway for the first time in many years he reflects on a life of crime in a society that has left many of its citizens behind. "Shotplayer" asks, when is it ok to push back against that society? What does it mean to live as a criminal? What does it mean to live one’s life on an invisible plane? To live at all?

Plane Days

Old friends. Young friends. Lovers and loners. They all wait, hoping to see something they have never seen before. A Virgin? Thai? Singapore? Hopefully another one for the book. A flask of tea or bottle of wine to keep warm, and every day around the perimeter fence at Heathrow is a plane day.

Missing

What would you do if a loved one went missing? What lengths would you go to find them? Missing follows the disappearances of Mimi and Truffles and the people who attempt to trace them down and bring them home safely.

Cherry Pop

Cherry Pop was no ordinary cat. Beloved by her wealthy socialite owners, she lived life in the lap of luxury. Her taste for filet mignon and the comfort of Rolls-Royces made Cherry Pop a celebrity before her death in 1995. This delightful story will tickle your funny bone and touch your heart.

The Promise

Helle and Maj-Briht lived together for 37 years and been married for two years. When Helle becomes weak and ends up in a retirement home, they have to live separately.

Older, Stronger, Wiser

In this short documentary, five black women talk about their lives in rural and urban Canada between the 1920s and 1950s. What emerges is a unique history of Canada’s black people and the legacy of their community elders. Produced by the NFB’s iconic Studio D.

Men Boxing

Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.

Frenel

A Short film about a contemporary milliner in NYC.

Polycephaly in D

Informed by an underlying sense of anxiety and anguish, Michael Robinson’s Polycephaly in D nestles fragments of narrative within a collage of sound, image, and text that oscillates between the elegant and the discordant.