New Titles Tuesday, May 18

Here is a selection of titles added to the collection in the past week.

Today, we include  items from our National Film Board streaming media collection of some6000 titles. These video titles are not necessarily new – but have had their catalogue records upgraded by the National Film Board.  It’s a great collection spanning more than 50 years of Canadian documentary and art film.

 “CONTACT”: requiem for a word / directed by: Olivier D. Asselin ; produced by: Pierre-Mathieu Fortin, Nathalie Cloutier ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). An investigation into how language is changing in the age of COVID-19. The complete upheaval of social relationships today is leading to the reinterpretation of certain terms, which have suddenly taken on a fatal connotation. This film is a funeral mass in memory of the word “contact.”

 1999 / directed by: Samara Grace Chadwick ; produced by: Annette Clarke, Dominic Desjardins, Sarah Spring, Selin Murat, Aline Schmid, Kat Baulu, Jac Gautreau  When death haunts a high school in a small town in the late 1990s, everyone is forever transformed. 1999 is not a ghost story, but the ghosts are palpable at every turn. The absences left by the relentless teenage suicides still shimmer with questions, trauma and regret. Ultimately the film weaves together multiple voices in a collective essay on how grief is internalized-and how, as children, we so painfully learn to articulate our desire to stay alive.

 55 socks / National Film Board of Canada. Based on a poem by Marie Jacobs, the animated short 55 socks, by Oscar-winning director Co Hoedeman, pays tribute to the ingenuity of the Dutch people during a dark period of their history – the winter of hunger in 1944-45. It’s the closing months of the war in occupied Holland and some women unravel a beautiful bedspread in order to knit 55 socks to barter for food. a simple, poetic film of rare beauty.  .

 60 day cycle / directed by: Colin Jones, Darcy Wittenburg ; produced by: Nicholas Klassen, Robert McLaughlin ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). When society shifts abruptly into pandemic low gear, a lone cyclist embarks on a tour that begins with shuttered shops and empty streets, and ends with a city opening up to a new reality.

Action: the October Crisis of 1970 / director and narrator, Robin Spry ; written by Robin Spry. A long and thoughtful look at the desperate days of October 1970 when Montreal awaited the outcome of FLQ terrorist acts, placing the events of the October Crisis in the long perspective of history. Compiled from news clips and other films, it shows independence movements and their leaders past and present, reflects the mingled relief, dismay, and defiance when the Canadian army came to Montreal, and shows how political leaders viewed the intervention.

Afterlife / National Film Board of Canada. What is dying? How does it feel? Afterlife is an impressionistic and visionary response to these eternal questions. Based on recent studies, case histories, and some of the ancient myths, the afterlife state is portrayed as an awesome but methodical working-out of all the individual’s past experiences. Film without words.

Aftermath: the legacy of suicide / directed by: Lisa Fitzgibbons ; produced by: Jacques Ménard ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). Filmmaker Lisa Fitzgibbons grew up with the uneasy feeling that things were not as they seemed. Then she finally learned that her father had ended his life. Surprised to discover that she is not alone, she reaches out to other survivors and meets two people who also lost their fathers to suicide at an early age. We listen to their stories, presented simply and compassionately against a background of poetic images. In speaking of their experiences, buried emotions resurface. Hope is reborn as all three come to terms with their fathers’ death – and with their own lives. In French with English subtitles.

Alouette / National Film Board of Canada. Norman McLaren and Rene Jodoin created this animated version of the popular French song, using simple drawings and paper cut-outs. The lyrics appear on the screen to encourage the audience to join in and sing along.

And so to bed / National Film Board of Canada. Peabody Award-winning director Jeff McKay takes us on an unusual odyssey into the world of the commonplace–our beds. Visit the beds of families, Nevada hookers, truckers, a murderer in his cell, artists, an undertaker, a coroner and a homeless man who remembers his mother tucking him in.

 Angry Inuk / directed by: Alethea Arnaquq-Baril ; produced by: Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Bonnie Thompson, Bob Moore, Daniel Cross, David Christensen . In her film Angry Inuk, Inuk director Arnaquq-Baril joins a new tech-savvy generation of Inuit as they campaign to challenge long-established perceptions of seal hunting. They are pushing for a sustainable way to take part in the global economy, but in opposition stands an army of well-funded activists and well-meaning celebrities. Arnaquq-Baril and her cameras travel through the Canadian Arctic, giving voice to the people the animal activists rarely bother to meet: the hunters, the craftspeople, the families for whom the seal hunt is a critical part of their livelihood and survival. She follows a group of students to Europe, where they plead the Inuit case before a European Union panel. The film interweaves the reality of Inuit life with the story of their challenge to both the anti-sealing industry and those nations that mine resources on Inuit lands while simultaneously destroying the main sustainable economy available to the people who live there.

Animation from Cape Dorset / National Film Board of Canada. A collection of short animated sequences produced by Inuit of the Cape Dorset (Baffin Island) Film Animation Workshop, which was established to teach to northern people a new and novel form of creative expression. The results, as shown here, reveal an easy adaptation to the medium, a keen sense of observation and an underlying humour, whether the subject be fact or fancy.

Arctic Circle – episode two: battle for the pole / directed by Wally Longul, Takashi Shibasaki, Yoichiro Yamamoto, Atsushi Nishida. Shot in HD, in some of the world’s most desolate and stunning locations, Arctic Circle marries dramatic footage with hard science and striking computer graphics to tell the story of climate change as nobody has seen it before.

A–holes: a theory / directed by John Walker ; produced by Ann Bernier, Annette Clarke, John Walker Ever get the impression that a–holes are taking over? A–holes: A Theory, a timely new doc from John Walker, investigates the breeding grounds of contemporary culture and searches for signs of civility in a rude-‘n-nasty universe. Inspired by Aaron James’ New York Times bestseller of the same name.

At the caribou crossing place. Part 1 / directed by Quentin Brown Part of a series on the Netsilik Inuit as documented by the Education Development Center. In this part, the time is early autumn, the place an Inuit camp in the Pelly Bay region of the Canadian Arctic. A woman, a boy and two men are shown occupied with their various activities. Film without words.

 Audacious / National Film Board of Canada. Michael Bublé reveals the source of his creative courage in this captivating short film. Supported by a devoted family who always believed in his dreams, Bublé remains a rebel. With 50 million albums sold, this inimitable Canadian artist is beloved by audiences around the globe, and continues to defy all expectations.

 Avenue zero / National Film Board of Canada. Asian girls are enslaved in suburban massage parlors. Domestic workers toil like slaves in suburban homes. Girls in a Montreal subway station are lured into prostitution. Vancouver gangs recruit Honduran boys to sell drugs … Human trafficking is a reality today. And it’s happening closer to home than you might think. Featuring candid interviews with victims, witnesses, and perpetrators, Avenue Zero weaves a spellbinding portrait of a dark and sinister trade flourishing in the shadows of the law.

 Holy Trinity, perfect community / Leonardo Boff ; translated from the Portuguese by Phillip Berryman. In this insightful work, Leonardo Boff unpacks the mysteries of Trinitarian faith, showing why it makes a difference to believe that God is communion and a model for Christian life today.

The apology / directed by Tiffany Hsiung ; produced by Anita Lee, Anita Lee ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). The Apology follows the personal journeys of three former “comfort women” who were among the 200,000 girls and young women kidnapped and forced into military sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. After decades of living in silence and shame about their past, they know that time is running out to give a first-hand account of the truth and ensure that this horrific chapter of history is not forgotten. Whether they are seeking a formal apology from the Japanese government or summoning the courage to finally share their secret with loved ones, their resolve moves them forward as they seize this last chance to set future generations on a course for reconciliation, healing, and justice. .

 The awful fate of Melpomenus Jones / National Film Board of Canada. Based on the Stephen Leacock short story, this amusing film, animated and set to toe-tapping ragtime music, tells of a polite and timid young curate with a major shortcoming. He just could not bring himself to say goodbye, and this was to cause him great grief and considerable consternation.

The pillar. TWU CONTENT. From 1963 to 2021, TWU’s annual yearbook captures the images of life on campus. The unprecedented 2020-2021 issue is now in the library