The Memories of Angels is a 2008 film by Luc Bourdon, created entirely from stock footage

Stock footage

Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures and file footage are film or video footage that may or may not be custom shot for use in a specific film or television program. Stock footage is of beneficial use to filmmakers as it is sometimes less expensive than shooting new...

 from over 120 National Film Board of Canada

National Film Board of Canada

The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...

 films, as an homage to the city of Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

 in the 1950s and 1960s. Bourdon incorporates material from films by such well-known directors as Michel Brault

Michel Brault

Michel Brault, OQ is a Quebec cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He is a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the National Film Board of Canada in the 1960s...

, Claude Jutra

Claude Jutra

Claude Jutra was a Canadian actor, film director and writer. The Prix Jutra are named in his honor because of his importance in Quebec cinema history. He was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec....

, Gilles Groulx

Gilles Groulx

Gilles Groulx was a Canadian film director. He grew up in a working-class family with 14 children. After studying business in school, he went to work in an office but found the white-collar environment too stultifying...

, Denys Arcand

Denys Arcand

Georges-Henri Denys Arcand, is a Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer. He has won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2004 for The Barbarian Invasions...

 and Arthur Lipsett

Arthur Lipsett

Arthur Lipsett was a Canadian avant-garde director of short experimental films.In the 1960s he was employed as an animator by the National Film Board of Canada . Lipsett's particular passion was sound. He collected pieces of sound from a variety of sources and fit them together to create an...

.

The idea for the film originated 15 years earlier, during a conversation between Bourdon and NFB producer Colette Loumèd about making a documentary film entirely from other movies. Poring over the vintage footage, Bourdon chose his hometown of Montreal — also the headquarters of the NFB — to be the central character of the film, since no other actor would appear throughout the film.

The film received the award for best Quebec film at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema

Festival du Nouveau Cinéma

The Festival du Nouveau Cinéma was known as the Montreal Festival of New Cinema and New Media until 2004. Founded in 1971, by Claude Chamberlan and Dimitri Eipides, it is an annual independent film festival held in Montreal and features independent films from around the world...

. It was also chosen as one of the top ten Canadian films of the year by the Toronto International Film Festival

Toronto International Film Festival

The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...

.

External links

• Watch The Memories of Angels at NFB.ca
• The Memories of Angels: A Cinematic Essay, an interview with Luc Bourdon