National Film Board of Canada Greenlights Three New Animated Short Films

The NFB has put three new animated shorts into production from Theodore Ushev, Michèle Lemieux and Mochi Lin, spanning hand-crafted pinscreen animation and stories of adoption, isolation and connection.

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has announced three new animated short films currently in production, bringing together internationally established animators and an emerging filmmaker within its latest production slate.

The projects are Les Villes Inconnues des Mères Disparues from Oscar-nominated animator Theodore Ushev, Polka from acclaimed pinscreen artist Michèle Lemieux, and Hostel la Vista from Montreal-based filmmaker Mochi Lin.

All three are 100% NFB productions and form part of a larger group of 16 projects greenlit by the Canadian public producer over the past year.

For short-film audiences, the animation slate is particularly notable because it combines one of Canada’s most distinctive animation traditions with filmmakers working at very different stages of their careers.

Theodore Ushev returns with Les Villes Inconnues des Mères Disparues

Theodore Ushev’s new animated short is titled Les Villes Inconnues des Mères Disparues.

The film is set in a world where cities are named after the first mothers who settled them.

Its story follows a young adopted girl who writes a postcard to her birth mother. She gives the message to a postman, who embarks on a journey to find her.

Ushev’s return to NFB animation is significant given his extensive history with the organisation.

His previous work includes Blind Vaysha, which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film, and The Physics of Sorrow, which won the Cristal for a Short Film and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

Les Villes Inconnues des Mères Disparues is being produced by Mélanie Boudreau Blanchard and Christine Noël for the NFB’s French Animation Unit.

Michèle Lemieux returns to the NFB pinscreen with Polka

Michèle Lemieux’s Polka continues her work with one of the most unusual tools in animation: the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen.

The NFB’s pinscreen contains approximately 240,000 movable pins. When illuminated from the side, the pins create shadows that can be manipulated to produce images with an engraved or charcoal-like appearance.

Lemieux previously used the technique for films including Here and the Great Elsewhere and The Painting.

Her new film Polka is described as an exploration of the physical materials of a painted work, inviting viewers to consider the materiality of an image itself.

The project is also produced by Mélanie Boudreau Blanchard and Christine Noël through the French Animation Unit.

The continued use of the pinscreen is notable because the technique represents a highly specialised branch of experimental animation with a long connection to the NFB.

Mochi Lin follows The Last Tango with Hostel la Vista

The third animated project comes from Mochi Lin, who previously made the short The Last Tango through the NFB’s Hothouse animation programme.

Her new film, Hostel la Vista, takes place inside a deteriorating hostel in Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood.

The hostel becomes a setting through which the film explores alienation, human connection, courage and survival.

The project is being produced by Maral Mohammadian for the NFB’s English Animation Unit.

Lin’s move from the Hothouse programme into another NFB production also illustrates one of the organisation’s routes for supporting emerging animators beyond their first institutional short.

Her earlier undergraduate film Swallow Flying to the South travelled internationally and reached the BAFTA animation shortlist in 2023.

Three very different approaches to animation

Although the films share an NFB production home, the announced projects point towards markedly different visual and narrative approaches.

Ushev’s film builds a fictional world around identity, adoption and the search for a missing parent.

Lemieux continues an exceptionally tactile form of animation through the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen.

Lin, meanwhile, uses a Montreal hostel as the setting for a story centred on contemporary isolation and human connection.

No release dates, festival premieres or final runtimes for the three films have yet been announced.

That makes the projects worth tracking as they progress from production towards their eventual festival and public releases.

NFB continues its long investment in short-form animation

The National Film Board of Canada has been producing animation and documentary films for more than eight decades and remains an important institutional producer of auteur animation.

Its catalogue contains thousands of works and has produced filmmakers and shorts that have travelled extensively through international festivals.

NFB productions have collectively received thousands of awards, including multiple Academy Awards.

Unlike many commercial studios, the organisation has also maintained support for experimental filmmaking techniques and short-form work that would often be difficult to finance through conventional production models.

The latest three-film animation slate continues that approach, ranging from an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker to an animator emerging from one of the NFB’s development programmes.

The next milestones to watch will be the completion dates, festival premieres and release plans for Les Villes Inconnues des Mères Disparues, Polka and Hostel la Vista as each project moves through production.