1939 Filmmaker John Grierson founds the National Film Board in Ottawa, saying it will be ‘the eyes of Canada.’ His philosophy is that Canadians should have access to its imagery and films

1941 The animation studios are founded by the legendary Norman McLaren, who had been invited to join the board by Grierson

1954 Claude Jutra (Mon oncle Antoine) joins the NFB as an in-house filmmaker and is hailed by the likes of François Truffaut, Bernardo Bertolucci, John Cassavetes and Jean Renoir

1956 The headquarters move from Ottawa to Montreal

’50s The RCMP unoffically investigates the NFB for communist activity

* Studio Unit B is born and is the driving force behind 1958’s The Candid Eye, a series of 13 half-hour documentaries capturing the reality of people’s ordinary lives. This ‘candid’ way of filming would later be known as cinema direct

1960 Colin Low’s Universe, a classroom film on astronomy, becomes an overnight success when the launch of Sputnik sets off the Space Race. It sells over 4,000 16mm prints. Stanley Kubrick is influenced by this film and calls upon Low for several discussions when making his landmark 2001: A Space Odyssey

1962 The NFB begins using a small portable multi-camera electronic slate (called the Time Index System), the first known use of a time-code system for camera negatives and magnetic sound tape

1967 Alanis Obomsawin is invited to join the NFB by Robert Verrall, and begins 40-plus years of documenting the struggles and triumphs of Canada’s native communities

Expo ’67 Colin Low presents the forerunner to the IMAX system with In the Labyrinth

Late ’60s The Challenge for Change program is created to put the tools of the medium into the hands of various community and minority groups to address topics such as poverty, direct democracy, native land claims and women’s liberation

1974 The English Program establishes Studio D, the first-ever all-women’s filmmaking unit, which goes on to garner three Oscars for its productions

1982 Oscar winner If You Love This Planet is labeled foreign propaganda under the U.S.’s 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act

1986 Transitions, an Expo 86 project by Colin Low and Tony Ianzelo, becomes the first IMAX 3D film

The ’80s NFB alumnus Giles Walker and John N. Smith captivate critics and world audiences alike with their uniquely styled ‘alternative’ dramas – low-budget feature films shot with small, documentary-size crews and non-professional actors improvising dialogue from a story outline. Titles include Masculine Mystique, Welcome to Canada, Sitting in Limbo, Train of Dreams and Cynthia Scott’s Company of Strangers

2006 Launches a touring retrospective of late animator Norman McLaren’s classics along with a 15-hour DVD box set of his work, Norman McLaren – The Master’s Edition

2007 The NFB coproduction Late Fragment is North America’s first interactive feature film

2008 Facing Champlain, a Work in 3 Dimensions, is developed in partnership with Quebec City’s Musée de la Civilisation to mark the city’s 400th anniversary. The film rewrites cinematic grammar, combining live action and a variety of animation techniques with blue-screen and digital effects

– RiP: A remix manifesto (a copro with EyeSteelFilm) is the first doc made with open-source materials about copyright

– Co-launches a network of e-cinema venues exploiting new digital distribution technology

2009 About 1,000 of the NFB’s 13,000 titles go online at www.NFB.ca, with more on the way. The online screening room is the latest step forward in a sweeping digital transformation underway at the Film Board

Some key Oscar nominees available for viewing on nfb.ca

• The Stratford Adventure (1954) •
• City of Gold (1957)
• Universe (1960)
• La terre est habitée (1967)
• Paddle to the Sea (1967)
• Pas de Deux (1968)
• Walking (1968)
• La faim / Hunger (1974)
• The Street (1976)
• The Big Snit (1985)
• George and Rosemary (1987)
• The Cat Came Back (1988)
• Strings / Cordes (1991)
• When the Day Breaks (1999)
• Hardwood (2004)