National Film Board of Canada brings four emotional and intimate stories to the Lunenburg Doc Fest

The 2022 Lunenburg Doc Fest will feature four NFB-produced and co-produced documentaries by Jeremiah Hayes (Dear Audrey, 2021), Tanya Tagaq and Chelsea McMullan (Ever Deadly, 2022), Daniel Léger (The Artisans, 2018) and Melaw Nakehk’o (K’i Tah Amongst the Birch, 2020).

Audiences at the festival will be treated to a powerful mix of NFB non-fiction storytelling, with tales of courage and creativity from here in the Maritimes, across Canada and far into the North.

The festival runs from September 22 to 28 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and documentary lovers will have the chance to watch the films in person or stream them online.

NFB lineup

Dear Audrey by Jeremiah Hayes | 89 min | 2021
Friday, September 23, at 1:30 p.m. | Lunenburg Opera House
Followed by a Q&A with Jeremiah Hayes and Martin Duckworth

Producers: Jeremiah Hayes and André Barro for Cineflix Media; Annette Clarke for the NFB’s Quebec and Atlantic Studio in Montreal
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/dear-audrey

• Acclaimed Canadian filmmaker-activist Martin Duckworth puts down his camera to care for his wife, Audrey Schirmer, during the final stage of her journey with Alzheimer’s disease. While Audrey gradually fades away—and their adult autistic daughter, Jacqueline, struggles with her mother’s illness—Martin commits everything he’s got to making their lives meaningful and still creative.
• Jeremiah Hayes is an award-winning director, editor and writer in Montreal, best known as co-director, co-writer and editor of Reel Injun (Rezolution Pictures/NFB), which received Gemini and Peabody awards. His first job after film school was with Martin Duckworth as assistant editor on his 1991 NFB doc Peacekeeper at War. To create Dear Audrey, Jeremiah filmed the Duckworth family over the course of four years.
• Martin has travelled the globe, directed 30 films and served as a cinematographer for 100. In 2015, he was awarded the Prix Albert-Tessier for outstanding contributions to Quebec cinema. Martin grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and taught for four years at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. Parts of Dear Audrey were filmed around his home in Sackville.
• Dear Audrey is has won multiple awards, including the People’s Choice Award at the 2021 Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM), Best of Documentary Features at the 2022 Indy Film Festival in Indianapolis, and Cercle d’or Best Feature Documentary Film at the 2022 Festival cinéma du monde de Sherbrooke.

Ever Deadly by Tanya Tagaq and Chelsea McMullan | 90 min | 2022
ednesday, September 28, at noon | Lunenburg Opera House
Screening with K’i Tah Amongst the Birch (see below)

Produced by Lea Marin, Anita Lee and Kate Vollum for the NFB’s Ontario Studio in Toronto
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/ever-deadly

• Ever Deadlyis an immersive, visceral music and cinema experience featuring Tanya Tagaq, avant-garde Inuit throat singer, and created in collaboration with award-winning filmmaker Chelsea McMullan. This documentary explores Tagaq’s transformation of sound with an eye to colonial fallout, natural freedom and Canadian history.
• We witness Tagaq’s intimate relationship with the Nuna—the Land—a living, breathing organism present in all forms of her improvised performances. Ever Deadly weaves concert footage with stunning sequences filmed on location in Nunavut, seamlessly bridging landscapes, stories and songs with pain, anger and triumph—all through the expressions of one of the most innovative musical performers of our time.
• Tanya Tagaq is a composer, author and JUNO and Polaris Prize-winning singer from Iqaluktuuttiaq (Cambridge Bay), who now divides her time between Nunavut and Toronto. Tagaq is an original disruptor, a world-changing figure at the forefront of seismic social, political and environmental change.
• Toronto filmmaker Chelsea McMullan creates documentary, experimental narrative, and hybrid films that explore the work of leading international artists. Chelsea’s first documentary feature, My Prairie Home, was named Best Canadian Documentary at the 2014 Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards.

The Artisans by Daniel Léger | 52 min | 2018
Friday, September 23, at 1:30 p.m. | United Church Hall

Produced by Jac Gautreau and Dominic Desjardins for the NFB’s Quebec, Canadian Francophonie and Acadian Documentary Studio in Moncton
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/artisans

• For more than 35 years, The Artisan Workshop in Memramcook, New Brunswick, has provided employment for people with intellectual disabilities. The documentary The Artisans chronicles the daily lives of the colourful and courageous individuals who work there full-time.
• Winner of the Best Acadian Medium Length or Feature Documentary at the 2018 International Francophone Film Festival in Acadie (FICFA), Moncton.
• Daniel Léger is an Acadian multidisciplinary artist from Saint-Antoine, New Brunswick, who expresses himself through music, writing and filmmaking. The Artisans is his third film with the NFB, following the documentaries A Sunday at 105 (2007) and Inseparable(2011).

K’i Tah Amongst the Birch by Melaw Nakehk’o | 10 min | 2020
Wednesday, September 28, at noon | Lunenburg Opera House
Screening with Ever Deadly (see above)

Produced by Coty Savard for the North West Studio in Edmonton as part of THE CURVE, a collection of social distancing stories that bring us together.

• Filmmaker-activist Melaw Nakehk’o has spent the pandemic with her family at a remote camp in the Northwest Territories, “getting wood, listening to the wind, staying warm and dry, and watching the sun move across the sky.” In documenting camp life—activities like making fish leather and scraping moose hide—she anchors the COVID experience in a specific time and place.
• Melaw Nakehk’o is a Dene/Dënesųłiné artist based out of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. She’s had a distinguished career as an artist, community leader and actor, and is recognized for her exemplary work in reviving and teaching moose-hide tanning techniques. She is a Founding Member of Dene Nahjo.