The Twitch

Two Dutch children stumble on a clearing in the woods where gnomes are going about their business. The gnomes are friendly to the children. A witch comes and takes them away on her broom to her gingerbread house, where she turns nasty on them, turning the boy into a spider, her yowling cat to stone, and tries to turn the girl into a rat when a gnome's arrow stops her. While the gnomes are fighting the witch, Hansel and Gretl free the other children who have been imprisoned and transformed by the witch.

A lively classroom discussion starter, this animated film uses satirical humor to present some of the difficulties graduating students may encounter when looking for work. The film tells of two young people whose career ambitions seem constantly to be thwarted. Their scramble to make a living leads both of them through a succession of odd jobs and, by a strange twist of fate, to a remote lumbering camp. In following their picaresque adventures, the film explores the attitudes needed for surviving in an uncertain world and promotes reflection on how to bridge the gap between ideals and reality.

A multi-layered satire of race relations in America. Live-action sequences of a prison break bracket the animated tale of Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox, who rise to the top of the crime ranks in Harlem by going up against a con-man, a racist cop, and the Mafia.

An examination of the Viking explorers who were the first Europeans to discover Canada.

Exiled artist and poet Mustafa embarks on a journey home with his housekeeper and her daughter; together the trio must evade the authorities who fear that the truth in Mustafa's words will incite rebellion.

A headstrong young girl in Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban, disguises herself as a boy in order to provide for her family.

An animated retelling of ‘Night of the Living Dead’, in which a group of people in a rural farmhouse struggle to survive the threat of bloodthirsty zombies.

George cuts out a paper star to top his Christmas tree but, dissatisfied, decides to go for the real thing - an unusually bright star that seems to beckon him from the sky.

This short animation about the perils of tobacco smoking takes us to the kingdom of King Size, a land where "no smoking" is illegal. Here, intoxication dangers and health risks linked to cigarettes are blissfully ignored, and non-smokers are unwelcome. A humorous invitation for young people not to start smoking, or if they have, to relinquish the hazardous habit.

In sixty seconds, animated images representing historical, sports, dramatic, documentary and animation films are woven together to illustrate the National Film Board's journey through fifty years of innovative filmmaking.