Latest posts from National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI)

Tasha Hubbard’s Birth of a Family screens at Freeze Frame Fest 2018

Posted: 26 Feb 2018 12:55 PM PST

Birth of a Family, the feature documentary from director Tasha Hubbard (NSI IndigiDocs, Featuring Aboriginal Stories Program), is part of this year’s Freeze Frame Festival in Winnipeg from March 4 to 11.

Birth of a Family screens on March 8 and March 11. View the full festival schedule.

In the film, three sisters and a brother, adopted as infants into separate families across North America, meet for the first time.

Removed from their young Dene mother’s care as part of Canada’s infamous Sixties Scoop, Betty Ann, Esther, Rosalie and Ben were four of the 20,000 Indigenous children taken from their families between 1955 and 1985, to be either adopted into white families or to live in foster care.

Note: the March 8 screening of this film is sold out according to the Freeze Frame website.

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Kreb

Posted: 23 Feb 2018 12:37 PM PST

A faceless factory worker fuses nature and technology until he discovers a dark truth: the factory is powered by the life force of infants.

He must face the great and gruesome machine regardless of personal sacrifice.

Creative team

Writer/director/producer: Tim Tracey

Filmmaker’s statement

Conceived while directing a documentary on farming and food security, Kreb explores a futuristic factory where technology and organic matter are fused into grotesque creations.

About Tim Tracey

Tim Tracey is an award-winning stop-motion animator/writer/director based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Working primarily with reclaimed materials, he fabricates vast worlds to tell his surreal stories.

Creating old school practical effects, he approaches animation like a magician. His practice ranges from feature-length documentaries (Feast or Famine, 2010), to no-holds barred action (Canadian Ninja, 2016) to experimental stop-motion animation.

His short animated film Kreb (2013) screened at prominent festivals and was recognized with awards including the 2015 Screen Nova Scotia Award – Best Short Film, Atlantic Film Festival 2013 – Best Animated Short, and Houston Worldfest 2014 – Platinum Remi – Animated Short.

Tim received the 2017 DANS Award for Artistic Achievement in Animation for his short film DataMine – currently on the festival circuit, screening at TIFF, TIFF Bell Lightbox, VIFF, London International Animation Festival, Shivers Berlin, Festival REGARD (where it received a Special Mention from the jury), Houston Worldfest (receiving a Grand Remi for Animation) – and Telefilm’s Not Short on Talent at Clermont-Ferrand, France, and SXSW, among others.

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Help You See: Mathew’s Story

Posted: 23 Feb 2018 12:27 PM PST

A 16-year-old blind Aboriginal musician from a remote Manitoba reserve gets the opportunity to take the stage with Grammy award-winning pop star Nelly Furtado in Winnipeg, but things don’t go quite as planned.

Creative team

Writer/director: Stephen J Payne
Producers: Stephen J Payne, Scott McKay

About Stephen J Payne

With over 30 years’ experience in the industry, Steve has worked on everything from feature films, radio documentaries to television drama and commercial production.

As CEO of Totem Studios, Steve has taken the company in a new direction working and developing young Indigenous filmmaking talent.

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Mann

Posted: 23 Feb 2018 12:21 PM PST

A department store mannequin falls in love with a coworker and must confront their insurmountable differences.

Creative team

Writer/director: Kyle Sawyer
Producer: Ryan West

Filmmaker’s statement

Mann is about a mannequin named Dave who works (as a mannequin) in a men’s clothing store. Dave longs for connection and, as an outsider, has a unique perspective on mankind.

I think much of the main emotion of the film comes from my experience living in a big city where you can observe people’s behaviour and think “What on earth are we all doing and why?” Dave is living a repetitious life on the fringes of society in the American South and it gives him this exact vantage point. He witnesses the silly, pointless, endearing, benighted and hopeless behaviours of humans in their everyday lives but he looks at us so longingly that I hope it gives the film a sentimental heart.

I wanted the challenge of making a ‘silent’ film (Dave’s name is never uttered. We used it for reference’s sake and it stuck) and also wanted the challenge of lending emotion to a character who only has one facial expression.

It’s amazing what you learn when you need to break film language down to the absolute basics of shot reverse shot and then use that language to try and land a joke or a punch to the heart. In the end, many of the sequences came out very still and stripped down and I think that honours the story of Dave in a nice way.

I hope the audience can relate to the mannequin in some way. We all feel like outsiders in some capacity some of the time, but also hopefully you can see yourself through the mannequin’s eyes and feel warmed and maybe a bit fortunate to be a weird human being.

About Kyle Sawyer

Canadian-born Kyle Sawyer premiered his first feature Victory in Toronto in 2015. He filmed Mann on location in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Raven Goes Fishing

Posted: 23 Feb 2018 12:15 PM PST

Raven has adventures and encounters new friends as he fishes in the ocean, on the sea shore and in forest streams.

Creative team

Writer/director: Daniel Foreman
Producer: Sharlene Millang

Filmmaker’s statement

I have been researching and spending time with elders to learn more about my heritage and the culture and history of other Canadian First Nations peoples. I am using these animations to share what I’ve learned in an educational and entertaining format.

Raven, a central character in First Nations folklore, is a fun and mischievous character who has been delightful to work with in this series of stories.

About Daniel Foreman

Daniel Foreman is a Métis filmmaker from Canada. For the past 10 years, he has focused his energy and creative talents on creating short films.

Daniel’s interest in filmmaking took root when he created music videos for some emerging local bands. In 2006, he took his first film class and created The Christmas Wreath, a black and white short drama on 16mm.

His first animation, completed in 2016, is Raven Steals the Light, a highly successful, award-winning 10-minute short film. Raven Steals the Light is the pilot episode for web series Legendary Myths: Raven Adventures, a full season of episodes inspired by stories told by the indigenous people from the Pacific Northwest Coast.

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