Lights, camera, action: the National Film Board and official language communities

Imagine taking the train across Canada to do video blogs of what you find. Or having musicians challenge you to capture on video how their sounds make or break a movie.

Sound like the opening scenes for a tourism ad? Think again! 

Video blogs about Canada and collaborations between filmmakers and musicians are just two ways the National Film Board (NFB) promotes films by, for and about official language minority communities.

Since its creation in 1939, the NFB has strived to bring the daily realities of Francophones living outside Quebec, and of Anglophones within that province, to the silver screen. The NFB does this by working not only with producers, directors, animators and other artists, but also with community representatives and language rights groups across Canada.

Andréanne Germain knows firsthand about the NFB’s commitment to official language communities. The Franco-Ontarian is the 2009 winner of Engage-toi! Thanks to this competition—a partnership project with VIA Rail Canada—Andréanne takes monthly train trips from Ottawa to various destinations to take photos, write texts and produce short videos for an NFB blog. The blog is devoted to Andréanne’s stories on citizen engagement and socio-economic issues in Francophone communities outside Quebec.

Making Music is another opportunity where official language communities—in this case, Montréal Anglophones—can showcase their skills in their first official language. This competition allows emerging filmmakers and up-and-coming Montréal musicians to explore the relationship between film and music in ways that go beyond mere music videos. The five 2009 competition winners will premiere at Pop Montreal’s Film Pop festival on October 3.

The history of the NFB is rich in examples of official language communities telling their stories. To learn more on the history of the NFB, visit its timeline.