DANIELA MUÑOZ GIRALDO
The National
Film Board of Canada or NFB
is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public
film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of
Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary
films, animation, web documentaries and
alternative dramas. In total, the NFB has produced over 13,000 productions
which have won over 5,000 awards. It has English-language and French-language
production branches.
Across the time this academy, has
develop a huge group of films who were recognize with academy awards because of
its goods directors, producers, photography and scenes.
in 1938 the Canadian government invited
an special film pioneer, John Grierson, a British documentary producer. He was
in charge of introduce the nowadays term, documentary. From that day,
the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau, established in 1918, had been the major Canadian film producer. The
results of Grierson's report were included in the National Film Act of 1939,
which led to the establishment of the National Film Commission, who was renamed
the National Film Board. It can be said, that it was founded to create publicity
in support of the Second World War. In 1940, with Canada at war, the NFB launched its Canada Carries On series of morale boosting theatrical shorts. The success of Canada Carries On led to the creation of The World in Action, which was more directional to international audiences.
In this period, other NFB films
were issued as news programs, such as the war over in 1945, intended for
theatrical showings. These films were based on current news and often tackled
wartime events as well as contemporary issues in Canadian culture.
Screenwriter Jacques Bobet
Principally, the NFB was a
primarily English-speaking institution. Based in Ottawa, 90% of its staff were
English and the few of them where French Canadians in production worked with English work teams.
There was a French Unit which was responsible for versioning films into French
but it was headed by an Anglophone. And in NFB annual reports of the time,
French films were listed under "foreign languages."
Screenwriter Jacques Bobet, hired in 1947,
worked to strengthen the French Unit and retain French talent, and was
appointed producer of French versions in 1951. During that period, Albert Trueman, sensitive to how the Quiet Revolution was beginning to transform Quebec society,
brought in Pierre Juneau as the NFB's
"French Advisor." Juneau recommended the creation of a French
production branch to enable French speaking filmmakers to work and create in
their own language.
In 1956, the NFB's offices were
move from Ottawa to Montreal, improving the NFB's reputation in French Canada
and making the NFB more attractive to French-speaking filmmakers. In 1964, a
separate French production branch was finally established, with Bobet as one of
its four initial executive producers.
During the ’40s and early ’50s,
the NFB employed people who were traveling and decide to work during their
travel, bringing films and public discussions to rural communities. A revision
of the National Film Act in 1950 removed any direct government intervention
into the operation and administration of the NFB.
The Canadian Film Development
Corporation would become responsible for promoting the development of the film
industry. In 1967 also saw the creation of Challenge for Change, a
community media project that would develop the use of film and video as a tool
for initiating social change. The National Film Board produced several
educational films in partnership with Canada parks during the 1960s and 1970s,
including Bill Schmalz's Bears and Man.
In the early 1970s, the NFB
began a process of decentralization, opening film production centers in cities across
Canada. The move had been championed by NFB producers such as Rex Tasker, who
became the first executive producer of the NFB's studio in Halifax.
During the 1970s and early
1980s, the National Film Board produced a series of vignettes, some of which shown on CBC and other Canadian
broadcasters. The vignettes became popular because of their cultural description
of Canada, and because they represented its changing state, such as the
vignette Faces which was made to represent the increasing cultural
and ethnic diversity of Canada. In 1996, the NFB operating budget was cut by 32%, forcing it to lay off staff and
to close its film laboratory, sound stage that now is privatized and other
departments.
In 2006, the NFB marked the
65th anniversary of NFB animation with an international retrospective of
restored Norman McLaren classics and the launch of the DVD box set, Norman
McLaren – The Master's Edition. The NFB budget has since been cut again.
The six-story John Grierson Building at its Montreal headquarters has been
unused for several years, with HQ staff now based solely in its adjacent Norman
McLaren Building. In October 2009, the NFB released a free app for Apple's iPhone that would allow users to watch thousands of NFB
films directly on their cell phones. In 2010, the NFB released an iPad version
of their app that streams NFB films, many in high definition.
In March 2012, the NFB's
funding was cut 10%, to be phased in over a three-year period, as part of
the 2012 Canadian federal budget. The NFB eliminated 73 full and part-time positions.
Beginning May 2, 2014, the
NFB's 75th anniversary was marked by such events as the release of a series of
commemorative stamps by Canada Post, and an NFB documentary about the film board's early
years, entitled Shameless Propaganda.
Bibliography:
-https://www.nfb.ca/history/
-https://www.nfb.ca/
-https://www.google.com.co/search?q=history+of+national+film+board+of+canada&espv=2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQtMqD-snPAhUEJiYKHeEtAcMQ_AUICigD&biw=1264&bih=576#imgrc=RjvoB_4dfx0uPM%3A
