The NFB’s Fall, Mapped

Matthew Rankin's Mulroney film leads an NFB slate spread across five fall festivals, three new streaming titles and a Crave collection. Where to find each one.

By Andrew Lovesey October 10, 2026 5 min read

Photo: Courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada

The National Film Board of Canada opened its fall at TIFF, and the next seven weeks are when that work spreads out to audiences in Montreal, Toronto and Windsor. Matthew Rankin’s Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney leads a slate spread across five festivals between now and the end of November, while three new titles arrive on the NFB’s own streaming platforms this month. Here is where to find each one, and what the NFB says it is.

The headliner

Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney won the People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award at TIFF in September. The NFB describes it as a “psychedelic doomscroll through the mind of a master politician”, following Canada’s 18th prime minister from the charm offensive he launched in 1976. Rankin directed, wrote, edited and researched it, building the 105-minute documentary in six episodes from about 80,000 pieces of archive, according to the press kit. It is in English and French.

Its next stops are the Windsor International Film Festival, 29 Oct to 8 Nov, where the NFB says it is nominated for the festival’s Prize in Canadian Film, and RIDM in Montreal, 19 to 29 Nov. A theatrical release is listed only as “coming this winter”.

The debut

Carol Nguyen’s first feature, Still Night, Burning House, a co-production of Metafilms, the NFB and Portage Films, premiered at TIFF and is now making the rounds. The NFB describes it as a “deeply personal debut feature” in which her Toronto family reunites after her uncle’s death and travels to Vietnam. It plays the Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal, which runs to 18 Oct, then Toronto’s Rendezvous with Madness, 22 Oct to 1 Nov, and Windsor.

New premieres this month

Two NFB titles have world premieres in Toronto this October:

O Fear, O Night (La peur, la nuit), Christine Chevarie-Lessard’s 70-minute documentary about her own persistent fear, premieres at Rendezvous with Madness. The NFB says she seeks answers through an Anxiety Anonymous group and other encounters. It then plays Windsor.
Platforms, a 21-minute short by experimental filmmaker Karl Lemieux, premieres at the Planet in Focus environmental film festival, 20 to 25 Oct at the Paradise Theatre. The NFB says it “bears witness to the last days of oil and gas platforms as they are dismantled” off the coast of Scotland. It moves to RIDM in November, with an installation version at OBORO in Montreal during the festival.

Planet in Focus also has the Toronto premiere of Nirilaurta: Let Us Eat, the first documentary from Iqaluit actor and producer Malaya Qaunirq Chapman, about the Inuit community of Taloyoak drawing on culture and each other to feed their families.

Also in Windsor

The NFB is bringing six films to Windsor in all. Beyond Rankin, Nguyen and Chevarie-Lessard, the lineup includes Aziz Zoromba’s LOUF, which follows chef Fadi Kattan and Nicole Mankinen as they try to open a Palestinian restaurant in Toronto; Martin Bureau’s All Things Are No Longer Equal, an Ontario premiere; and Sophie Bédard Marcotte’s I Lost Sight of the Landscape, in which a director makes 16 versions of one film while following a theatre artist’s process.

On your screen

Three titles arrive on the NFB’s online platforms this month:

Bread Will Walk, an animated short by Alex Boya in which “a devoted sister races to save her brother, a bread-turned zombie”, from 13 Oct
There Are No Words, Min Sook Lee’s documentary about searching for her mother’s memory, from 15 Oct
Saigon Story: Two Shootings in the Forest Kingdom, Kim Nguyen’s Noble Films and NFB co-production about family secrets from the Vietnam War and a famous photograph, from 26 Oct

For October, the NFB has also curated a Halloween channel, including Jennie Williams’s Nalujuk Night and Regina Pessoa’s Kali the Little Vampire, plus an All Things Hockey channel.

If you subscribe to Crave, a separate NFB collection of 44 animated and documentary films has been streaming there since late summer, according to the NFB, including The Big Snit, Ryan, The Sweater and Alanis Obomsawin’s Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance.

Where to watch

Bread Will Walk · NFB.ca · CA · From 13 Oct
There Are No Words · NFB.ca · CA · From 15 Oct
Saigon Story: Two Shootings in the Forest Kingdom · NFB.ca · CA · From 26 Oct
Still Night, Burning House · Festival du nouveau cinéma, Montreal, to 18 Oct; Rendezvous with Madness, Toronto, 22 Oct to 1 Nov; Windsor, 29 Oct to 8 Nov
O Fear, O Night · Rendezvous with Madness, Toronto, 22 Oct to 1 Nov; Windsor, 29 Oct to 8 Nov
Platforms · Planet in Focus, Toronto, 20 to 25 Oct; RIDM, Montreal, 19 to 29 Nov
Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney · Windsor, 29 Oct to 8 Nov; RIDM, Montreal, 19 to 29 Nov; in theatres this winter, no date yet
NFB collection · Crave · CA · Streaming now

Sources

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