The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) announced last week two NFB films are among the first five titles announced by the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) for its 29th edition, taking place from Nov. 19 to 29.
The NFB-produced films include acclaimed experimental filmmaker Karl Lemieux’s short film Platforms and established director Matthew Rankin’s feature documentary Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney.
Shot in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland, Platforms (20 minutes) “is a sensory meditation that merges metal, oil and water,” reads an NFB press release. The film follows a group of workers as they dismantle decommissioned oil and gas platforms, piece by piece. Lemieux worked with Swedish soundscape artist BJ Nilsen to assemble images shot on 16-mm film, sounds and textures “into a poetic documentary portrait of a gigantic worksite on the high seas,” the NFB’s release says.
“These majestic vistas of workers painstakingly dismantling a steel behemoth on six concrete legs are like living tableaux, capturing the embodiment of industrial excess and destruction while placing these extremely unsightly objects under the magnifying glass. Platforms is a physical, corporeal and, ultimately, deeply human experience set against the wreckage of the petroleum industry,” the release adds.
During RIDM 2026, Platforms will also be presented as an installation at the artist-run centre OBORO on Berri St. in Montreal.
Rankin’s documentary Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney (105 minutes) is described by the NFB as “a psychedelic doomscroll that reinvents the flamboyant rise of the man born to be Canada’s 18th prime minister.”
Blending historical narrative and glitchcore video, the film revisits the political ascent of the “boy from Baie-Comeau” and “reconnects us with the essence of his character: his innate sense of spectacle,” the NFB’s release says.
“Drawing on some 80,000 pieces of archival material, Matthew Rankin deploys all manner of animation techniques as well as audio and video textures — from 16-mm clips to abstract VHS segments — almost to the point of sensory saturation,” the release says.
The RIDM screening of Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney will follow the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September.
Images from (l-r) Platforms and Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney, courtesy of the NFB
