Canada Day Animation Jamboree celebrates National Film Board classics, at the Rio Theatre July 1

Oscar-winning Vancouver animator David Fine curates some of his favourite shorts, plus his own Animal Behaviour and Bob’s Birthday

The Rio Theatre and the National Film Board of Canada present the Canada Day Animation Jamboree on July 1 at 3:30 pm

TOGETHER WITH ALISON SNOWDEN, Vancouver’s David Fine has brought to life such weird and wonderful National Film Board animated classics as Animal Behaviour and Bob’s Birthday—the latter taking home an Oscar for its hilariously cringe-inducing story of a midlife crisis that hits during a surprise 40th celebration.

Now, for Canada Day, Fine has curated a bunch of his favourite NFB animated short films, many of them also Academy Award winners or nominees, and will introduce them at a special matinee screening at the Rio Theatre.

It’s a chance to see some of not just the country’s, but the world’s best animation on a big screen—and pay tribute to one of Canada’s most famous exports.

Prepare for a lot of laughs, including 2018’s group therapy sessions in “Animal Behaviour”, where a canine psychotherapist counsels such lost souls as a leech who suffers from separation anxiety and a bird with guilt issues.

Fine’s all-time favourite “The Big Snit” is also on the roster; Richard Condie’s darkly funny, 1985 mirroring of a married couple playing a increasingly heated game of Scrabble with the macrocosm of a sudden global nuclear war.

On the more poignant side of the program, Caroline Leaf’s 1976 watercolour-and-ink “The Street”, based on a story by Mordecai Richler, looks at how a Jewish family in Montreal grapples with the decline and impending death of their elderly grandmother.

There are many other shorts deserving of national pride on the program, offering an apt Canada Day celebration for movie fans—not to mention those looking to come in from the possible rain predicted for July 1.

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Janet Smith

Janet Smith is founding partner and editorial director of Stir. She is an award-winning arts journalist who has spent more than two decades immersed in Vancouver’s dance, screen, design, theatre, music, opera, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.

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Canada Day Animation Jamboree celebrates National Film Board classics, at the Rio Theatre July 1

Oscar-winning Vancouver animator David Fine curates some of his favourite shorts, plus his own Animal Behaviour and Bob’s Birthday

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