At the Arclight Theatre in the center of Hollywood, the National Film Board of Canada held a gala reception and screening in celebration of the NFB’s 70th anniversary. Animation filmmakers Chris Landreth, Bruce Alcock and Cordell Barker were also on hand to introduce their films and answer questions.

Landreth, Alcock, Perlmutter, Barker

Government Film Commissioner and NFB Chair Tom Perlmutter thanked the Canadian California Business Council and Canadians Abroad as well as the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles, noting the “creative potential of groups mixing together.” Perlmutter noted that NFB had launched a free online “screening room” with trailers, feature films, documentaries and animation. He added that NFB had also launched an iPhone app that also allows free access to the same content that’s available online. “It’s been a big hit, with 3 million views of the online site and close to 100,000 apps downloaded,” he said. Read more about the iPhone app here.

The Consul General of Canada in Los Angeles, David Fransen, pointed out that the NFB was founded in 1939, on the even of World War II, to tell the story of Canada at war. “It’s been enormously successful and a tremendous legacy,” said Fransen, noting that NGB-films have garnered 12 Oscar wins and 70 Oscar nominations. “What I like about the NFB is that the government of Canada has given it license to push buttons and boundaries. It’s achieved a certain amount of notoriety for producing films that take on social themes. NFB has spent a lifetime empowering filmmakers and sending important messages around the world.”

The three films screened were Landreth’s The Spine, about a marriage gone awry; Alcock’s  Vive La Rose, based on an old folksong, and Barker’s Runaway, a story of a runaway train with a zany soundtrack by Ben Charest, the same composer who wrote the score for The Triplets of Belleville.

For The Spine, which is entirely CG, Landreth worked with producers Steve Hoban and Mark Smith of Copperheart Animation and Marcy Page of NFB, who had collaborated with him on Ryan.The short was produced by the NFB of Canada in association with Copperheart Animation, C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, with the creative collaboration of Autodesk Canada CO and Seneca College School of Communication Arts. In the story, the married couple whose relationship has gone off the tracks goes into couples’ therapy, and many strange and beautiful things ensue.

Vive La Rose is the tragic love story of a fisherman and his beloved, inspired by a traditional Newfoundland song performed by Émile Benoit. Animator/director Alcock filmed the a fisherman’s abandoned cabin for the setting, and divided the screen into the three compartments of a drawer, each fulfilling a narrative function. Fish hooks, shells, driftwood, rocks and other objects provide a rough texture that match the singer’s voice.

Runaway tells a subversive story of class, when a train runs amok and two cars with very different passengers have to find a way to survive impending doom.  Yes, there are casualties but, in the end, equality prevails.

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