7 NFB Films To Screen at TIFF 15

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An eclectic mix of Canadian talent shines on the big screen

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) returns to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) (September 10–20, 2015) with a stellar line up of feature films from Mina Shum, Mark Lewis and Guy Maddin, as well as short films from award-winning animator Howie Shia, Godspeed You! Black Emperor member David Bryant and collaborator Karl Lemieux, journalist Katherine Monk, and multidisciplinary artist Caroline Monnet.

Feature films

Vancouver’s Mina Shum is back at the festival with her feature-length documentary directorial debut Ninth Floor, which revisits the infamous 1969 Sir George Williams Riot at Montreal’s Concordia University, a watershed moment in Canadian race relations. Hamilton, Ontario-born visual artist Mark Lewis explores the ever-changing textures of Paris, São Paulo and Toronto in Invention (Mark Lewis Studio/NFB/Soda Film + Art), an anthology woven from 14 short films. In The Forbidden Room (Phi Films/Buffalo Gal Pictures/NFB), Winnipeg auteur Guy Maddin teams up with co-director Evan Johnson to honour classic cinema by taking us high into the air, around the world, and into dreamscapes, spinning tales of amnesia and captivity, deception and murder, skeleton women and vampire bananas. The Forbidden Room originated from the NFB-produced interactive project Seances, launching in 2016.

Short films

The Short Cuts Program features four NFB works. Toronto’s Howie Shia (Flutter) drew on events in the life of his Taiwanese grandfather to create the animated short BAM, a modern adaptation of the myth of Hercules. In Quiet Zone, Montreal filmmakers Karl Lemieux and David Bryant use elements of documentary, film essay and experimental film to take viewers deep into the world of people who suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity. Vancouver film critic and author Katherine Monk makes her directorial debut with Rock the Box, which looks at Rhiannon Rozier’s efforts to break into the male-dominated world of DJing. And Montreal-based artist Caroline Monnet’s Mobilize explores the perpetual negotiation between the modern and the traditional by Canadian Indigenous peoples, with images culled entirely from outtakes from over 700 NFB films dating back to 1939, and a driving musical score by Tanya Tagaq.

Please visit NFB website for more specifics on the chosen film and/or the NFB.

– Originally Posted August 5, 2015.

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