How to Build an Igloo

This classic short film shows how to make an igloo using only snow and a knife. Two Inuit men in Canada’s Far North choose the site, cut and place snow blocks and create an entrance--a shelter completed in one-and-a-half hours. The commentary explains that the interior warmth and the wind outside cement the snow blocks firmly together. As the short winter day darkens, the two builders move their caribou sleeping robes and extra skins indoors, confident of spending a snug night in the midst of the Arctic cold!

Nanook of the North

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Nowhere Land

Documentary about filmmaker Bonnie Ammaaq's memories of life on Baffin Island, where her family moved for eleven years during her childhood from the hamlet of Igloolik to return to the traditional Inuit way of life.

Greenland

Highway to the Arctic

Every winter for decades, the Northwest Territories, in the Canadian Far North, changes its face. While the landscape is covered with snow and lakes of a thick layer of ice, blocking land transport, ice roads are converted to frozen expanses as far as the eye can see.

Timuti

In Inukjuak, an Inuit community in the Eastern Arctic, a baby boy has come into the world and they call him Timuti, a name that recurs across generations of his people, evoking other Timutis, alive and dead, who will nourish his spirit and shape his destiny.

Red Fever

Red Fever is a witty and entertaining feature documentary about the profound -- yet hidden -- Indigenous influence on Western culture and identity. The film follows Cree co-director Neil Diamond as he asks, “Why do they love us so much?!” and sets out on a journey to find out why the world is so fascinated with the stereotypical imagery of Native people that is all over pop culture. Why have Indigenous cultures been revered, romanticized, and appropriated for so long, and to this day? Red Fever uncovers the surprising truths behind the imagery -- so buried in history that even most Native people don't know about them.

Three Thousand

Inuit artist Asinnajaq plunges us into a sublime imaginary universe—14 minutes of luminescent, archive-inspired cinema that recast the present, past and future of her people in a radiant new light. Diving into the NFB’s vast archive, she parses the complicated cinematic representation of the Inuit, harvesting fleeting truths and fortuitous accidents from a range of sources—newsreels, propaganda, ethnographic docs, and work by Indigenous filmmakers. Embedding historic footage into original animation, she conjures up a vision of hope and beautiful possibility.

The Experimental Eskimos

In the early 1960s the Canadian government conducted an experiment in social engineering. Three young Inuit boys were separated from their families in the Arctic and were sent to Ottawa, the nation's capital, to live with white families and to be educated in white schools. The consequences the experiment would have on the boys, their identity and culture was brushed aside. The bureaucrats did not anticipate the outcome. The three grow up to be political activists and leaders - often at odds with the government that brought them south. They establish aboriginal rights in Canada and are instrumental in the creation of Nunavut, the world's largest self-governed aboriginal territory. But it all comes at a tremendous personal cost. Peter Ittinuar, Zebedee Nungak, and Eric Tagoona recount their stories, achievements and challenges in this film about an attempt at assimilation, empowerment, and the triumph of the human spirit.

Angry Inuk

With "sealfies" and social media, a new tech-savvy generation of Inuit is wading into the world of activism, using humour and reason to confront aggressive animal rights vitriol and defend their traditional hunting practices. Director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril joins her fellow Inuit activists as they challenge outdated perceptions of Inuit and present themselves to the world as a modern people in dire need of a sustainable economy.

The Last Ice

For centuries, Inuit in the Arctic have lived on and around the frozen ocean. Now, as climate change is rapidly melting the sea ice between Canada and Greenland, the outside world sees unprecedented opportunity. Oil and gas deposits, faster shipping routes, tourism, and fishing all provide financial incentive to exploit the newly opened waters. But for more than 100,000 Inuit, an entire way of life is at stake. Development here threatens to upset the delicate balance between their communities, land, and wildlife. Divided by aggressive colonization and decades of hardship, Inuit in Canada and Greenland are once again coming together, fighting to protect what will remain of their world. The question is, will the world listen?

Inuit Languages in the 21st Century

Ulivia explores what is accessible via the Internet in relation to Inuktitut. A complex language with several dialects which varies from one generation to the next. Inuktitut is threatened by dominant languages. Are there solutions so that these technologies are allies and not enemies?

Netsilik Eskimo Series, I: At the Autumn River Camp

It is late autumn and the Eskimos travel through soft snow and build karmaks, shelters with snow walls and a roof of skins, in the river valley. The geese are gone but some musk-ox are seen. The man makes a toy sleigh from the jawbones of a caribou and hitches it to a puppy. Next day the women gather stocks of moss for the lamp and the fire. The men fish through the ice with spears. The woman cooks fish while the men cache the surplus. Then the family eats in the karmak. The men build an igloo and the household goods are moved in. They begin the complicated task of making a sleigh, using the skins from the tent, frozen fish, caribou antlers and sealskin thong. The woman works at a parka, using more caribou skin, and the children play. Now the sled is ready to load and soon the family is heading downriver to the coast.

Netsilik Eskimo Series, II: At the Caribou Crossing Place

The time is early autumn. The woman wakes and dresses the boy. He practices with his sling while she spreads a caribou skin to dry. The boy picks berries and then the men come in their kayak with another caribou. This is skinned, and soon night falls. In the morning, one man leaves with his bow while the other makes a fishing mannick, a bait of caribou meat. The woman works at the skins, this time cleaning sinews and hanging them to dry. The man repairs his arrows and then sets a snare for a gull. The child stones the snared gull and then plays hunter, using some antlers for a target. His father makes him a spinning top. Two men arrive at the camp and the four build from stones a long row of manlike figures, inukshult, down toward the water. They wait for caribou and then chase them toward the stone figures and so into the water where other men in kayaks spear them. The dead animals are floated ashore and skinned.

Netsilik Eskimo Series, III: At the Spring Sea Ice Camp

Two Eskimo families travel across the wide sea ice. Before night falls they build small igloos and we see the construction in detail. The next day a polar bear is seen basking in the warming sun. A woman lights her seal oil lamp, carefully forming the wick from moss. The man repairs his snow goggles. Another man arrives dragging a polar bear skin. The boy has made a bear-shaped figure from snow and practices throwing his spear. Then he tries his bow. Now, with her teeth, the woman crimps the sole of a sealskin boot she is making. The men are hunting seal through the sea-ice in the bleak windy weather. The wind disturbs the "tell-tales," made of eider down or a hair loop on a bone, that signal when a seal rises to breathe. A hunter strikes, kills and drags his catch up and away. At the igloo the woman scrapes at a polar bear skin and a man repairs a sled. In the warming weather the igloo is topped with furs and a snow shelter is built to hide the sled from the sun.

Netsilik Eskimos, V: At the Winter Sea Ice Camp

In late winter when the cold is severe, the people and dogs are glad to stop their trek and make camp. In the blue dusk the men probe the snow and then cut building blocks while the women shovel a site. Soon all are under cover, and in the wavering light of the stone lamp they sleep, their breath rising coldly. In the light of day the men test and refurbish their spears, harness dogs to the sled and strike out on the sea ice. Each man, with a dog or two, explores the white waste, seeking scent of a seal's breathing hole. When a dog noses the snow, the man probes for the hole and, when he finds it, suspends a single looped hair to signal when the seal rises to breathe. Then he waits, motionless, to make his strike. He kills, and the others gather to taste the warm liver of his catch. Then, as night comes, the vigil goes on.

Netsilik Eskimos, IX: Stalking Seal on the Spring Ice

The family is on the shore of Pelly Bay in May-June. A seal basks beside its hole under a warming sun. The hunter stalks the seal, kills it and drags it to the family camp on shore. Man and wife skin the seal, cutting the hide into rings that girdle the body. Stripped of blubber, the rings are then cut spirally into long thongs. The boy plays on the shingle imitating the circling gulls, while the man stretches his thongs between rocks and scrapes away the fur. The woman dresses the seal, wasting nothing, braiding the intestines.

Children of the Arctic

Children of the Arctic is a portrait of five Native Alaskan teenagers growing up in Barrow - the northernmost community in the United States. As their climate and culture undergo profound changes, they strive to balance being modern American kids and the inheritors of an endangered way of life.

Netsilik Eskimos, VIII: Jigging for Lake Trout

More signs of winter's end as more wildlife returns. The family makes an excursion for fresh fish from a lake. They build a karmak and move in the furs, cooking troughs, etc. The woman sets up her lamp, spreads the furs and attends to the children. There are signs of returning wildlife. The man moves out on the lake ice and chips a hole for fishing. He baits his hook and lowers it jigging the line to attract the fish. Crouched by the hole, he persists with his purpose and takes some fish, as does his wife who has joined him. Both remain at the hole through a severe blizzard. Please note that this is an archival film that makes use of the word “Eskimo,” an outdated and offensive term. While the origin of the word is a matter of some contention, it is no longer used in Canada. This film is therefore a time capsule of a bygone era, presented in its original version. The NFB apologizes for the offence caused.

The Last Igloo

Documentary that follows a lone Inuit as he hunts, fishes and constructs an igloo, a way of life threatened by climate change.

The Main Celebration of Life

In Russia, the attitude to death is paradoxically irrational – we all seem to live forever. Entrepreneur Sergey Yakushin is the only reasonable "madman" who conducted a funeral "revolution" in his native Novosibirsk. Yakushin himself turned around to face death after being diagnosed with late-stage cancer 15 years ago. And they gave me a year of life.

Garage Sale Mystery: All That Glitters

When her friend Martin turns up murdered just hours after auctioning off an abandoned storage unit full of unique items to Jennifer, she is immediately pulled on the case as a key eyewitness. Working with Detective Lynwood, Jennifer helps single out a disgruntled customer as the prime suspect, while she and her business partner, Danielle, sift through boxes from the auction.

Block Burner

Based on the true-life rags to riches story of Young Block. Born without a father, and raised by his mom and her abusive boyfriend, Young Block learns the games and struggles of growing up in the hood.

Gal Avatar

An ordinary high school student– with an incontinent grandmother and extremely horny dad, are visited by an extremely pretty avatar to preform a “mind transfer” on Grandma. But before too long, Dad’s sniffing round to get it on with the great-shaped avatar.

Panda

Jacob’s dream is to be a rap artist, so he works on a song that will give him the big breakthrough. To his big frustration, his dreams are tested every time his roomie Adam gets a visit from his girlfriend Frederikke. And through a journey of unforeseen events Jacob meets additional challenges that test his working discipline.

64: Part 2

1989: 64th and last year of the Showa era. A girl is kidnapped and killed. The unsolved case is called Case 64 ('rokuyon'). 2002: Yoshinobu Mikami, who was the detective in charge of the Case 64, moves as a Public Relations Officer in the Police Affairs Department. His relation with the reporters is conflicted and his own daughter is missing. The statute of limitations for the Case 64 will expire in one year. Then a kidnapping case, similar to the Case 64, takes place. The rift between the criminal investigation department and police administration department deepens. Mikami challenges the case as a public relations secretary.

Wolf Whistle

A young woman goes for a sunset jog in a dangerous park with unexpected consequences.

The Card Player

Stavros, having just finished his military service and fearing that he will lose his beloved Rita, decides to imitate the fortune teller in his neighborhood. He succeeds with great success, convincing even Rita's parents that the man they were matchmaking her with is not suitable for their daughter.

Peculiar People

Three very different people randomly meet each other and finds out they all have something in common.

Cityscape: Impressions of a City

In this experimental animated short, Ryan Larkin (Walking) creates a series of figures who move across the screen and disappear into a hole. Eventually, the hole metamorphoses into a bridge, on top of which stands the young man from whom the others figures originated.

A Kiss in the Snow

When a new boy moves into the area Cecilie and Peter's friendship is changed.

People

People is a film shot behind closed doors in a workshop/house on the outskirts of Paris and features a dozen characters. It is based on an interweaving of scenes of moaning and sex. The house is the characters' common space, but the question of ownership is distended, they don't all inhabit it in the same way. As the sequences progress, we don't find the same characters but the same interdependent relationships. Through the alternation between lament and sexuality, physical and verbal communication are put on the same level. The film then deconstructs, through its repetitive structure, our relational myths.

Tunnel 18

Tunnel 18 (Persian: تونل 18‎‎) is a 1997 Iranian Historical drama film written and directed by Hossein Shahabi (Persian: حسین شهابی)

Peter Pan

This musical version of the tale of the boy who wouldn't grow up aired live on television on March 7, 1955. It was so popular that it was restaged the following year, and again four years later.

A Strange Adventure

A trio of thieves make their getaway by kidnapping a young hot-rodder, and take over a mountain cabin for a hideout after overpowering its occupants.

Circleen, Coco and the Wild Rhinoceros

Cirkeline finds a bestie with the airs of a princess, and Ingolf meets a rhinoceros who's fed up with always being the little one. They set off together on a journey that teaches them that being in charge isn't always a piece of cake.

I milanesi a Napoli

Some Neapolitans help a firm from Milan to establish two factories in Naples: one produces TV dinner pizzas the other manufactures lace. The owner of a pizza joint and a woman who makes lace at home are against the project.

Marja pieni!

A story about Marja Maronen, a 30-year-old office worker who is self-centered and pursues love and wealth. After her father's death, Marja is plunged into a crisis that shakes her entire life, the consequences of which are particularly reflected in her relationships and working life.