Holiday Shorts
Though variegated in style—from paper cut-out reveries to vérité documentary—the shorts in this selection are united beyond just their Christmastime setting: each one is artfully constructed and inventive in its execution, and exudes a joyful warmth befitting of the season. Among the films’ makers are key National Film Board talents, including the groundbreaking animator Norman McLaren ("Christmas Cracker"), Alanis Obamsawin, early champion of Indigenous voices in documentary ("Christmas at Moose Factory"), and cinema vérité pioneers Stanley Jackson and Wolf Koenig ("The Days Before Christmas").
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The Story of Christmas
Directed by Evelyn Lambart | 8 mins | 1973
Evelyn Lambart, considered the “First Lady of Canadian animation,” illustrates the familiar tale of Jesus’s conception and birth in the luminous and symbol-rich fashion of a medieval manuscript. -
Christmas at Moose Factory
Directed by Alanis Obomsawin | 13 mins | 1971
A legendary figure in First Nations filmmaking, Alanis Obomsawin made her documentary debut with this charming, crayon-drawn portrait of a Cree community at Christmastime, as illustrated and narrated by a number of the local children. -
Christmas Cracker
Directed by Jeff Hale, Norman McLaren, Grant Munro, and Gerald Potterton | 9 mins | 1963
A kinetic, cut-out rendition of “Jingle Bells,” a stop-motion face-off between a gaggle of tin wind-up toys, and a hand-drawn quest for the perfect Christmas tree topper: collectively, an upbeat and utterly c... -
The Days Before Christmas
Directed by Terence Macartney-Filgate, Stanley Jackson and Wolf Koenig | 30 mins | 1958
Montreal’s malls, churches, and clubs alike are abuzz with the Yuletide spirit in this beautifully observed short documentary—the inaugural episode of pioneering vérité series “The Candid Eye,” which aired on ...
