NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NFB animation and documentaries shine at TIFF
New features from Ann Marie Fleming and Alanis Obomsawin join shorts by Justin Simms and Theodore Ushev
August 3, 2016 – Toronto – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
Feature-length
animation from Ann Marie Fleming, a new documentary by master filmmaker
Alanis Obomsawin, a short film by Newfoundland and Labrador filmmaker
Justin
Simms and a multi-award-winning short by animator Theodore Ushev make
up a stellar
National Film Board of Canada (NFB) lineup, featuring world and North American
premieres, at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), September 8–18,
2016.
Making its North American premiere at TIFF, Fleming’s
Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming
is a feature film about a young Canadian poet who embarks on a
whirlwind voyage of discovery. One of Canada’s most distinguished
documentarians, Obomsawin is back in TIFF’s Masters program with the
world premiere of her latest NFB film,
We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice.
Also making its world premiere at TIFF is
HAND.LINE.COD., a film by Justin Simms that revisits the
Newfoundland community of Fogo Island almost 50 years after Colin Low’s legendary
Challenge for Change
films, as residents there seek to revive the traditional fishery. The visually stunning
Blind Vaysha, Ushev’s 13th animated short to date,
has its North American debut at TIFF after an acclaimed European festival run.
Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming – North American premiere/Special
Presentation
Written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming,
Window Horses is a feature animation about love—love of family, poetry, history, culture.
Rosie
Ming, a young Canadian poet, is invited to perform at a poetry festival
in Shiraz, Iran, but she’d rather go to Paris. She lives at home with
her over-protective
Chinese grandparents and has never been anywhere by herself. Once in
Iran, she finds herself in the company of poets and Persians who tell
her stories that force her to confront her past: the Iranian father she
assumed abandoned her and the nature of poetry
itself. The film is about building bridges between cultural and
generational divides. It’s about being curious. Staying open. And
finding your own voice through the magic of poetry.
The
film’s voice actors include Sandra Oh (Rosie), Ellen Page (Kelly,
Rosie’s best friend), Don McKellar (a young poet named Dietmar), Shohreh
Aghdashloo (Mehrnaz,
a professor at the University of Tehran) and Nancy Kwan (Gloria,
Rosie’s overprotective grandmother). More than a dozen animators,
including Kevin Langdale, Janet Perlman, Bahram Javaheri and Jody
Kramer, worked on the film with Fleming.
Window Horses is co-produced by Stickgirl Productions (Ann Marie Fleming), Sandra Oh and the NFB
(Shirley Vercruysse and Michael Fukushima), and distributed in Canada by
Mongrel Media.
A
long-time collaborator with the NFB, Fleming has been making
award-winning films that deal with family, history, memory and issues of
identity for over 25 years,
including such NFB films as I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors
(2010) and Big Trees
(2013). She also adapted her animated feature documentary
The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam
into an award-winning graphic novel of the same name.
We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice – World premiere/Masters Program
In
2007, the Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and the Assembly of
First Nations filed a landmark discrimination complaint against Indian
Affairs and Northern
Development Canada. They argued that child and family welfare services
provided to First Nations children on reserves and in Yukon were
underfunded and inferior to services offered to other Canadian children.
The case was subject to appeals and stretched out
over nine years, but it finally ended in victory for the plaintiffs in
2016.
We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice documents
this epic court challenge, giving voice to the
tenacious childcare workers at its epicentre―especially Caring Society
executive director Cindy Blackstock, who was spied on and harassed by
the federal government for her part in this saga. Obomsawin takes us
through all the stages of this long legal battle
without ever losing sight of the key issues: the well-being of children
and the sustainability of Indigenous culture.
A
member of the Abenaki Nation, Alanis Obomsawin is one of Canada’s most
distinguished filmmakers. For over four decades, she has directed
documentaries at the NFB
that chronicle the lives and concerns of First Nations people and
explore issues of importance to all.
HAND.LINE.COD. – World premiere/Short Cuts
Set in the coldest waters surrounding Newfoundland’s rugged Fogo Island, Justin Simms’ 13-minute
HAND.LINE.COD. follows a group of “people of the
fish”—traditional fishers who catch cod live by hand, by hook and line,
one at a time. Their secret mission? To drive up the price of fish.
After a 20-year moratorium on North Atlantic cod, the
stocks are returning. These fishers are leading a revolution in
sustainability, taking their premium product directly to the commercial
market for the first time.
The film is dedicated to the memory of NFB film pioneer Colin Low, who shot 27 films in Fogo Island for
Challenge for Change, developing a revolutionary way to use film as a tool to bring about social change and combat poverty.
HAND.LINE.COD. is produced and executive produced for the NFB by Annette Clarke.
One
of the most prolific and acclaimed filmmakers in Eastern Canada, Justin
Simms is especially focused on bringing the Newfoundland experience to
the screen, including
through his 2014 NFB feature documentary Danny, co-directed
with William D. MacGillivray, about former premier Danny Williams.
Blind Vaysha – North American premiere/Short Cuts
Vaysha
is not like other young girls: her left eye sees only the past while
her right, only the future. Blinded by what was and tormented by what
will be, she remains
trapped between two irreconcilable temporalities, unable to see the
reality that exists in the present. In this animated short adapted from a
story by acclaimed Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov, and narrated by
Caroline Dhavernas, Theodore Ushev reaffirms
his virtuosity in visual experimentation. Using an expressive and
powerful style poised halfway between religious paintings and linocuts,
Blind Vaysha is a captivating metaphoric tale about the difficulty of being in the here and now.
Blind Vaysha
has received four awards to date, including the Jury Award and Junior
Jury Award
at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. The film was
produced at the NFB by Marc Bertrand and executive producer Julie Roy,
with the participation of
ARTE France.
Born
in Bulgaria, Theodore Ushev settled in Montreal in 1999, where he
acquired a reputation as a prolific and talented animator thanks to such
acclaimed works as
his animated documentary Lipsett Diaries
(2010),
recipient of 16 awards—including a Genie Award for Best Animated
Short—and named to TIFF’s list of top 10 Canadian short films of the
year.
–30–
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Media Relations
Canadian media contact for
Window Horses
Bonnie Smith
Star PR
Tel.: 416-488-4436
E-mail :
starpr@sympatico.ca
Twitter :
@starpr2
Jennifer Mair
Publicist
Tel.: 416-954-2045
Cell: 416-436-0105
About the NFB
The
NFB is Canada’s public producer of award-winning creative
documentaries, auteur animation, and groundbreaking interactive stories,
installations
and participatory experiences. NFB producers are deeply embedded in
communities across the country, working with talented artists and
creators in production studios from St. John’s to Vancouver, on projects
that stand out for their excellence in storytelling,
their innovation, and their social resonance. NFB productions have won
over 5,000 awards, including 15 Canadian Screen Awards, 17 Webbys, 12
Oscars and more than 90 Genies.
To access many of these works, visit
NFB.ca
or download the NFB’s
apps for mobile devices and connected TV.
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