Stop Sawing the Table!

The National Film Board of Canada has launched their beta player, with a cornucopia of wonderful documentaries, shorts, animations and abstract films. Established in 1938, and then reincarnated in the 1950s, the NFB was one of those great Canadian enterprises from a time when Canada was interested in doing new and challenging things. The NFB explored new territory and set the standard in documentary-making and animation. So we applaud their efforts to get these treasures in front of people again. Congrats to Matt & the team.

Here are some of my recommendations:

• Golden Gloves, Gilles Groulx, 1961, 27 min 43 sec
  A beautiful documentary about a young black Montreal boxer, Ronald Jones, and others in the Golden Gloves competition. Main problem: this is the English dubbed version, not the original French. wtf?
• Bill Reid, Jack Long, 1979, 27 min 50 sec
  A film about Haida sculptor, Bill Reid.
• Le merle, Norman McLaren, 1958, 4 min 39 sec
  The master experimental animator, playing with a Quebec folk song.
• Debout sur leur terre, Maurice Bulbulian, 1983, 54 min 19 sec
  Life in three Inuit villages in Quebec.

And of course, The Big Snit:

See some more recommendations at MetaFilter.