The National Film Board of Canada is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and alternative dramas. In total, the NFB has produced over 13,000 productions since its inception, which have won over 5,000 awards. The NFB reports to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It has bilingual production programs and branches in English and French, including multicultural-related documentaries.
The History of Canadian animation involves a considerable element of the realities of a country neighbouring the United States and both competitiveness and co-operation across the border.
Cordell Barker is a Canadian animator, director and screenwriter based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He began animating in his late teens after taking on an apprenticeship at Kenn Perkins Animation. A two-time Academy Award nominee, Barker is an animation filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
The Canadian Screen Award for Best Animated Short is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian animated short film. Formerly part of the Genie Awards, since 2012 it has been presented as part of the Canadian Screen Awards.
Walking is a 1968 Canadian animated short film directed and produced by Ryan Larkin for the National Film Board of Canada, composed of animated vignettes of how different people walk.
Zlatko Grgić was a Croatian animator who emigrated to Canada in the late 1960s.
Theodore Asenov Ushev is a Bulgarian animator, film director and screenwriter based in Montreal. He is best known for his work at the National Film Board of Canada, including the 2016 animated short Blind Vaysha, which was nominated for an Academy Award. He is a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France.
Canada Carries On was a series of short films by the National Film Board of Canada which ran from 1940 to 1959. The series was created as morale-boosting propaganda films during the Second World War. With the end of the war, the series lost its financial backing from the Wartime Information Board, but continued as an NFB series of theatrical shorts that included newsreels as well as animated shorts.
Clyde Henry Productions is a Canadian film, stop-motion animation, puppetry and illustration firm consisting of Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski. Formed in 1997, the team is responsible for the animated shorts Madame Tutli-Putli, winner of the Genie Award for Best Animated Short, and Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life, both co-produced with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
Gloria Victoria is a 2013 3-D anti-war animated short by Theodore Ushev, produced in Montreal by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). A film without words set to the music of Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony, Victoria Gloria is final film in a trilogy of NFB animated shorts by Ushev on art, ideology and power, following Tower Bawher (2005) and Drux Flux (2008).
The Golden Bear for the Best Short Film is the most important award in the short film competition of the Berlin International Film Festival.
Julie Roy is a Canadian filmmaker and producer of animated films, who has been the head of Telefilm Canada since 2023. She was previously the executive producer of the French animation studio at the National Film Board from 2014 until her Telefilm appointment.
Carface is a 2015 National Film Board of Canada animated short film by Claude Cloutier in which cars sing and dance while the Earth slides toward environmental ruin.
Blind Vaysha is a 2016 animated short by Theodore Ushev, produced by Marc Bertrand for the National Film Board of Canada, with the participation of ARTE France. Based on a story by Georgi Gospodinov, the film tells the story of a girl who sees the past out of her left eye and the future from her right—and so is unable to live in the present. Montreal actress Caroline Dhavernas performed the narration for the film, in both its French and English language versions. The film incorporates music from Bulgarian musician and composer Kottarashky and is his and Ushev's fourth collaboration.
Hedgehog's Home is a Canadian-Croatian short stop-motion animated film, directed by Bosnian Croat Eva Cvijanović and released in 2017. Based on a short children's story by Bosnian-Serbian-Yugoslavian writer Branko Ćopić, the film's character is a hedgehog defending his home from a fox, a bear, a wolf and a wild boar. It is a co-production between Bonobostudio of Croatia and the National Film Board of Canada.
I Like Girls is a Canadian short animated film, directed by Diane Obomsawin and released in 2016. Based on Obomsawin's 2014 graphic novel On Loving Women, the film features anthropomorphic animal characters acting out stories of lesbian same-sex attraction.
Mamie is a Canadian short animated film, directed by Janice Nadeau and released in 2016. The film narrates the story of a young girl who remembers her grandmother in Gaspésie, but feels that the older woman is indifferent and unaffectionate toward her.
Demoni is a Canadian-Bulgarian animated short film, directed by Theodore Ushev and released in 2012. A music video for the song of the same name by Bulgarian musician Kottarashky, the film depicts scenes of Eastern European folk art on a spinning vinyl record.
Sarah Van Den Boom is a French animation film director and co-founder of the Papy3D Productions production company.
Bad Seeds is a Canadian animated short film, written, directed and animated by Claude Cloutier for the National Film Board of Canada. The short had its international premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, and won multiple awards for Best Animated Short Film in Calgary International Film Festival and the 2021 New York City Short Film Festival and the Sommets du cinéma d'animation. The film was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the 94th Academy Awards.
