The National Film Board of Canada has announced that The Memories of Angels by Luc Bourdon is part of the official competition for the 2009 FOCAL International Awards. The winners of this year’s awards which are designed to promote the use of archive images in the creative media will be announced during a ceremony held in London England on May 5. As the National Film Board celebrates its 70th birthday Luc Bourdon’s feature film confirms the NFB’s role in conserving one of the world’s most remarkable audiovisual collections a priceless part of Canadian and global heritage. An assembly of clips from 120 films produced by the NFB The Memories of Angels is a trip through time and an exploration of the Montreal mosaic. In creating this film essay Bourdon has drawn from the fertile source of great Quebec cinema recycling and reformatting sights and sounds of the past and lending them a new and unexpected texture. Winner of the Focus–Cinémathèque québécoise Grand Prize at the 2008 edition of Montreal’s Festival du nouveau cinema The Memories of Angels is also a finalist for the Jutra Award for Best Documentary. National Film Board of Canada www.nfb.ca
