The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's 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.
William Norman McLaren, LL. D. was a Scottish Canadian animator, director and producer known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including hand-drawn animation, drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound. McLaren was also an artist and printmaker, and explored his interest in dance in his films.
Roman Kroitor was a Canadian filmmaker who was known as a pioneer of Cinéma vérité, as the co-founder of IMAX, and as the creator of the Sandde hand-drawn stereoscopic 3D animation system. He was also the original inspiration for The Force. His prodigious output garnered numerous awards, including two BAFTA Awards, three Cannes Film Festival awards, and two Oscar nominations.
Caroline Leaf is a Canadian-American filmmaker, animator, director, tutor and artist. She has produced numerous short animated films and her work has been recognized worldwide. She is best known as one of the pioneering filmmakers at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). She worked at the NFB from 1972 to 1991. During that time, she created the sand animation and paint-on-glass animation techniques. She also tried new hands-on techniques with 70mm IMAX film. Her work is often representational of Canadian culture and is narrative based. Leaf now lives in London UK and is a tutor at The National Film and Television School. She maintains a studio in London working in oils and on paper and does landscape drawing with iPad.
René Jodoin was an animation director and producer who founded the French-language animation studio of the National Film Board of Canada. Born in Hull, Quebec on December 30, 1920, Jodoin died in Montreal on January 22, 2015 at the age of 94.
Colin Archibald Low was a Canadian animation and documentary filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was known as a pioneer, one of Canada's most important filmmakers, and was regularly referred to as "the gentleman genius". His numerous honors include five BAFTA awards, eight Cannes Film Festival awards, and six Academy Award nominations.
Torill Kove is a Norwegian-born Canadian film director and animator. She won the 2007 Academy Award for Animated Short Film for the film The Danish Poet, co-produced by Norway's Mikrofilm AS and 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.
Persepolis is a 2007 adult animated biographical drama film based upon Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel of the same name. It was written and directed by Satrapi in collaboration with Vincent Paronnaud. The story follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. The title references the historical city of Persepolis. The film was an international co-production made by companies in France and Iran. It premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, where it co-won the Jury Prize, alongside Silent Light. It was released in France and Belgium on 27 June 2007, earning universal praise from critics. The film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 80th Academy Awards, and was nominated for Best Animated Feature.
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.
La Salla is a 1996 computer animated short by Richard Condie, produced in Winnipeg by the National Film Board of Canada.
My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirts is a 1999 animated short by Torill Kove.
Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis are a Canadian animation duo. On January 24, 2012, they received their second Oscar nomination, for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) animated short film, Wild Life (2011). With their latest film, The Flying Sailor, they received several nominations and awards, including for the Best Canadian Film at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and on January 24, 2023, they received a nomination for the 95th Academy Awards under the category Best Animated Short Film.
Anita Doron is a Hungarian-Canadian film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, author, and a 2010 TED Fellow. Doron is best known for her 2012 film adaptation of the 1996 novel The Lesser Blessed, written by Canadian author Richard Van Camp.
Marcy Page is an American animator, film producer and educator.
Julie Goldman is an American film producer and executive producer. She founded Motto Pictures in 2009. She is an Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning producer and executive producer of documentary feature films and series.
The Head Vanishes is a 2016 Canada/France animated short by Franck Dion about a woman with dementia who is determined to make her annual train trip to the seaside.
Guy Glover was a senior National Film Board of Canada (NFB) producer and administrator.
The Tesla World Light is an 8-minute 2017 black and white avant-garde film by Montreal director Matthew Rankin imagining the latter days of inventor Nikola Tesla in 1905 in New York City. Rankin has stated that he was interested in exploring Tesla's optimistic utopian vision. The film is a fanciful amalgamation of elements from Tesla's life including his 1905 pleadings for J.P. Morgan to continue funding his World Wireless System and his love for a pigeon. Rankin has stated that "everything in the film is drawn from something [Tesla] wrote or said." The film uses excerpts of Tesla's actual letters to Morgan, which the filmmaker found in the Library of Congress; even a reference to Tesla falling in love with an "electric pigeon" was based on an interview with Tesla, according to Rankin. The film is produced by Julie Roy for the National Film Board of Canada.
Edmond Was a Donkey is a Canadian-French animated short film, directed by Franck Dion and released in 2012. The film tells the story of Edmond, an unhappy office worker who discovers his true nature after his coworkers play a prank that involves forcing him to wear donkey ears.
