All Videos

Released in 1968 and often referred to as Canada’s first music video, The Ballad of Crowfoot was directed by Willie Dunn, a Mi’kmaq/Scottish folk singer and activist who was part of the historic Indian Film Crew, the first all-Indigenous production unit at the NFB. The film is a powerful look at ...

This short film tells the story of Mohammed Alsaleh, a young Syrian refugee granted asylum in Canada after fleeing torture and imprisonment by the Assad regime. While rebuilding his life in Vancouver, he assists newly-arrived Syrian refugee families to resettle, finding new homes and new beginnings.

In The Mountain of SGaana, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter spins a magical tale of a young man who is stolen away to the spirit world, and the young woman who rescues him. The film brilliantly combines traditional animation with formal elements of Haida art, and is based on a story inspired b...

This feature documentary tells the remarkable story of a group of 13 Chinese-Canadian civilians who were trained by the British Secret Service for Operation Oblivion—a covert "suicide" mission that would parachute them into the jungles of the Pacific to fight the Japenese during World War II. Thr...

Doc Zone investigates how our love affair with technology taxes our brains, leaving us chronically distracted, less productive and possibly a lot less happy. Are We Digital Dummies? takes a hard look at the risks associated with using so much tech gear, whether we're in the ...

Episode 9: 1867 to 1873 CE.Confederation is barely accomplished when the new dominion must face an enormous challenge: extending its reach into the vast prairies and beyond, to the Pacific Ocean. But Canada blunders catastrophically in seeking to take over the west without the consent of...

Episode 7: 1815 to 1850 CE. By 1830, the struggle for democratic government in the colonies of British North America has reached fever pitch. As the colonies grow in wealth and population, a generation of charismatic reformers — Joseph Howe in Nova Scotia, Louis-Joseph Papineau in Lower ...

This 1950s' film looks at the measures to preserve water flow from the Rocky Mountains. With the steady falling of the water table, the exploitation of timber stands and the recession of glaciers, water conservation was an urgent concern of the Alberta and federal governments.

Episode 6: 1670 to 1850 CE. The Canadian west is opened by the great fur-trading empires of the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Companies, the native people who were their indispensable allies, and bold explorers and map makers who ventured from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean and long-so...

This short film is an exposé on the style of fishing done by Indigenous fishermen in the Prairie provinces. The commentary is offered by a fisherman as he goes about his business. He recalls his boyhood when the men of his band freighted by canoe for the Hudson's Bay Company. He also speaks of ed...

Episode 13: 1929 to 1940 CE. Canada's economy collapses during the 1930s, creating a prolonged political and social crisis. In the context of the Dust Bowl, the relief camps and the Regina Riot, political leaders such as William Aberhart, Maurice Duplessis and Mitchell Hepburn capture na...

This feature documentary profiles poet John McCrae, from his childhood in Ontario to his years in medicine at McGill University and the WWI battlefields of Belgium, where he cared for wounded soldiers. Generations of schoolchildren have recited McCrae’s iconic poem “In Flanders Fields,” but McCra...

The National Film Board of Canada, in collaboration with the Canadian War Museum, OHASSTA, and the Royal Canadian Legion present a recitation of John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” to mark the 100-year anniversary of this iconic war poem. One of Canada’s leading film, television and stage actors, ...

Paratroopers dropping down to fight beyond the Rhine ushered in the final phase of the war in Europe, a war that was in its sixth year. In Endings and Beginnings, veterans recount their memories of that conflict, in combination with outstanding footage filmed by army cameramen at the front. VE-Da...

This short documentary from 1955 discusses the status of Canada's aboriginal populations and their struggles within Canadian society. The emphasis is on positive change.