NFB

A while ago a friend told me about the online archive of the National Film Board of Canada. Wow! As of 2009 you can stream pretty much the whole back catalog of documentaries, indie dramas, nature shows, children's programming and animations, all the way back to weird post-war stuff by Arthur Lipsett and Norman McLaren. Yet more confirmation that things in Canada are just cooler than in the states. Here is one of my favorites -- a short film called "Angel" with music by Leonard Cohen. I love the dog and polka-dotted angel wings in the photo-negative black-and-white palette (there's a version on youtube that reverses the coloration and doesn't look as cool.)



More notables:
- Cosmic Zoom by Eva Szasz (sort of like the Eames power-of-ten film)
- This is a Recorded Message by Jean-Thomas Bédard (crazy McLuhan-esque cut-out collage)
- Nobody Waved Good-bye by Don Owen (Ken Loach-y realism with fascinating female lead and annoying boyfriend)
- No Way They Want to Slow Down by Giles Walker (70s Canadian skiers in Chile!)
- VTR St-Jacques by Bonnie Sherr Klein (Montreal agit-prop coolness)

Have fun exploring!