Michael Rubbo

Recently added

Sad Song of Yellow Skin
7
A film about the people of Saigon told through the experiences of three young American journalists who, in 1970, explored the consequences of war and of the American presence in Vietnam. It is not a film about the Vietnam War, but about the people who lived on the fringe of battle. The views of the city are arresting, but away from the shrines and the open-air markets lies another city, swollen with refugees and war orphans, where every inch of habitable space is coveted. (NFB)
War
Waiting for Fidel
5.8

Waiting for Fidel

Nov 14, 1975
This feature-length documentary from 1974 takes viewers inside Fidel Castro's Cuba. A movie-making threesome hope that Fidel himself will star in their film. The unusual crew consists of former Newfoundland premier Joseph Smallwood, radio and TV owner Geoff Stirling and NFB film director Michael Rubbo. What happens while the crew awaits its star shows a good deal of the new Cuba, and also of the three Canadians who chose to film the island. (NFB)
Documentary
Margaret Atwood: Once in August
10
In Margaret Atwood: Once in August, filmmaker Michael Rubbo attempts to discover what shapes the celebrated writer's fiction and what motivates her characters. As one of Canada's most distinguished poets and novelists, Atwood is also one of this country's most elusive literary figures.
Documentary
Journal inachevé
8

Journal inachevé

Jan 02, 1982
In this heartwarming docudrama, Chilean immigrant Marilú Mallet strives to make a film about her experience of deep isolation. Her English-speaking husband, a prominent film director, criticizes her subjective approach to filmmaking; her young son, raised in Quebec, speaks only French. Interviews with Isabel Allende and other Chilean exiles reveal a deep bond in this powerful and resonant film about language and genre, exile and immigration.
Documentary
Vincent et moi
5

Vincent et moi

Dec 13, 1990
While sketching one day, 13 year old Jo encounters a mysterious art dealer who buys a few of her drawings and commissions her to do some more. Some time thereafter she reads a news story about a million dollar sale of some drawings of a young Vincent Van Gogh. She enlists the aid of some friends and heads to Amsterdam in search of the mystery man. Or, should she go to 19th century Arles in search of Vincent himself?
Adventure
Courage to Change
1

Courage to Change

Jan 01, 1986
This feature documentary is a sequel to the 1966 documentary The Things I Cannot Change, which, by focusing on the Bailey family of Montreal, provided an anatomy of poverty in North America. Courage to Change explores what has happened to the Baileys in the intervening 18 years.
Documentary
Cold Pizza
1

Cold Pizza

Jan 01, 1972
An engaging story of young enterprise, pitfalls, and eventual success that all young viewers will enjoy. It is about two young Greek boys in Montréal who try to earn some extra money for a trip to their sunny homeland by delivering pizzas. The misadventures they encounter and how they surmount them make an amusing story, full of youthful initiative.
Drama
Adventures
1

Adventures

Jan 01, 1968
This short live-action film tells the story of a little raccoon who encounters many adventures when he strays from home to explore the world.
Documentary
Adventures
1

Adventures

Jan 01, 1968
This short live-action film tells the story of a little raccoon who encounters many adventures when he strays from home to explore the world.
Documentary
Adventures
1

Adventures

Jan 01, 1968
This short live-action film tells the story of a little raccoon who encounters many adventures when he strays from home to explore the world.
Documentary
That Mouse
1

That Mouse

Jan 01, 1970
In this children’s film, a white mouse cavorts about the forest, mostly on the back of a bumbling black bear, creating such a stir that other forest creatures (a deer, a tortoise, a hawk and a hound) have to put a stop to it. Animals speak with human voices and “act” out their parts.
That Mouse
1

That Mouse

Jan 01, 1970
In this children’s film, a white mouse cavorts about the forest, mostly on the back of a bumbling black bear, creating such a stir that other forest creatures (a deer, a tortoise, a hawk and a hound) have to put a stop to it. Animals speak with human voices and “act” out their parts.
Sad Song of Yellow Skin
7
A film about the people of Saigon told through the experiences of three young American journalists who, in 1970, explored the consequences of war and of the American presence in Vietnam. It is not a film about the Vietnam War, but about the people who lived on the fringe of battle. The views of the city are arresting, but away from the shrines and the open-air markets lies another city, swollen with refugees and war orphans, where every inch of habitable space is coveted. (NFB)
War
Waiting for Fidel
5.8

Waiting for Fidel

Nov 14, 1975
This feature-length documentary from 1974 takes viewers inside Fidel Castro's Cuba. A movie-making threesome hope that Fidel himself will star in their film. The unusual crew consists of former Newfoundland premier Joseph Smallwood, radio and TV owner Geoff Stirling and NFB film director Michael Rubbo. What happens while the crew awaits its star shows a good deal of the new Cuba, and also of the three Canadians who chose to film the island. (NFB)
Documentary
Waiting for Fidel
5.8

Waiting for Fidel

Nov 14, 1975
This feature-length documentary from 1974 takes viewers inside Fidel Castro's Cuba. A movie-making threesome hope that Fidel himself will star in their film. The unusual crew consists of former Newfoundland premier Joseph Smallwood, radio and TV owner Geoff Stirling and NFB film director Michael Rubbo. What happens while the crew awaits its star shows a good deal of the new Cuba, and also of the three Canadians who chose to film the island. (NFB)
Documentary
Challenger: An Industrial Romance
1
Follows the development of Canadair's super-executive jet. A totally new type of aircraft, it is faster, cheaper to fly, and more comfortable than any other business jet. Would it make it off the drawing board and into the air? The film captures the spirit of the Canadian air transport industry and its attempt to compete with its American counterparts...
Documentary
Wet Earth and Warm People
1
This documentary by Michael Rubbo (Waiting for Fidel) offers candid glimpses of Indonesia and its people. Filming in and around the capital of Jakarta, the cameras follow where chance leads, capturing the flavour of life in this fertile crescent of tropical islands. Throughout the film, the focus is on a society caught between the past and the conflicting options for the future - to change or not to change from long-established patterns of life to ones more influenced by western technology.
Documentary
Wet Earth and Warm People
1
This documentary by Michael Rubbo (Waiting for Fidel) offers candid glimpses of Indonesia and its people. Filming in and around the capital of Jakarta, the cameras follow where chance leads, capturing the flavour of life in this fertile crescent of tropical islands. Throughout the film, the focus is on a society caught between the past and the conflicting options for the future - to change or not to change from long-established patterns of life to ones more influenced by western technology.
Documentary
Sir! Sir!
1

Sir! Sir!

Jan 01, 1968
Here is what happened in a Toronto classroom when teachers occupied the children's desks and children became the teachers. The film grew out of another, Mrs. Ryan's Drama Class, where young children found their way into creative drama. There is food for thought in this impromptu reversal of roles.
Documentary
Bate's Car: Sweet as a Nut
1
This short film presents Mr. Bate, an inventor who discovers a substitute for gasoline in barnyard manure. Even though he fits the classic mould of single-minded know-how and practical dreamer, his discovery is tried and tested. He demonstrates how his home-made digester does turn manure into potent methane gas that powers his auto. And for good measure, he demonstrates his latest sustainable invention – a bicycle powered by the bumps on the road.
Documentary
OK ... Camera
1

OK ... Camera

Jan 01, 1972
This documentary film is an exploration of Québec’s feature film industry. The film takes a look at the people who have succeeded in this unique milieu (Geneviève Bujold is one) or failed; at its movies, which run the gamut from hard-core skinflicks to such highly acclaimed films as Mon Oncle Antoine, and at its audiences, which number in the millions.
Documentary
Log House
1

Log House

Jan 01, 1970
This film is about the building of a traditional log cabin in Québec. It starts with the tree and finishes with the housewarming. While it is not a realistic housing option for many Canadians, it does provide encouragement for all of us to re-examine the resources around us that we may not be using effectively, if at all.
Documentary
I Am an Old Tree
1

I Am an Old Tree

Jan 01, 1970
A picture of life in Cuba by a filmmaker who believes in getting into people's lives and letting ideas seep out of what he finds. Among the people shown are a doctor who came back to Cuba, a high-school student whose school-based radio-assembly work and classes last until 10:00 p.m., and a tobacco farmer who now owns his land. For all of them the new Cuba has done much and promises more.
Documentary
I Am an Old Tree
1

I Am an Old Tree

Jan 01, 1970
A picture of life in Cuba by a filmmaker who believes in getting into people's lives and letting ideas seep out of what he finds. Among the people shown are a doctor who came back to Cuba, a high-school student whose school-based radio-assembly work and classes last until 10:00 p.m., and a tobacco farmer who now owns his land. For all of them the new Cuba has done much and promises more.
Documentary
I Am an Old Tree
1

I Am an Old Tree

Jan 01, 1970
A picture of life in Cuba by a filmmaker who believes in getting into people's lives and letting ideas seep out of what he finds. Among the people shown are a doctor who came back to Cuba, a high-school student whose school-based radio-assembly work and classes last until 10:00 p.m., and a tobacco farmer who now owns his land. For all of them the new Cuba has done much and promises more.
Documentary
I Am an Old Tree
1

I Am an Old Tree

Jan 01, 1970
A picture of life in Cuba by a filmmaker who believes in getting into people's lives and letting ideas seep out of what he finds. Among the people shown are a doctor who came back to Cuba, a high-school student whose school-based radio-assembly work and classes last until 10:00 p.m., and a tobacco farmer who now owns his land. For all of them the new Cuba has done much and promises more.
Documentary
Margaret Atwood: Once in August
10
In Margaret Atwood: Once in August, filmmaker Michael Rubbo attempts to discover what shapes the celebrated writer's fiction and what motivates her characters. As one of Canada's most distinguished poets and novelists, Atwood is also one of this country's most elusive literary figures.
Documentary
Challenger: An Industrial Romance
1
Follows the development of Canadair's super-executive jet. A totally new type of aircraft, it is faster, cheaper to fly, and more comfortable than any other business jet. Would it make it off the drawing board and into the air? The film captures the spirit of the Canadian air transport industry and its attempt to compete with its American counterparts...
Documentary
Vincent et moi
5

Vincent et moi

Dec 13, 1990
While sketching one day, 13 year old Jo encounters a mysterious art dealer who buys a few of her drawings and commissions her to do some more. Some time thereafter she reads a news story about a million dollar sale of some drawings of a young Vincent Van Gogh. She enlists the aid of some friends and heads to Amsterdam in search of the mystery man. Or, should she go to 19th century Arles in search of Vincent himself?
Adventure
Sad Song of Yellow Skin
7
A film about the people of Saigon told through the experiences of three young American journalists who, in 1970, explored the consequences of war and of the American presence in Vietnam. It is not a film about the Vietnam War, but about the people who lived on the fringe of battle. The views of the city are arresting, but away from the shrines and the open-air markets lies another city, swollen with refugees and war orphans, where every inch of habitable space is coveted. (NFB)
War
Waiting for Fidel
5.8

Waiting for Fidel

Nov 14, 1975
This feature-length documentary from 1974 takes viewers inside Fidel Castro's Cuba. A movie-making threesome hope that Fidel himself will star in their film. The unusual crew consists of former Newfoundland premier Joseph Smallwood, radio and TV owner Geoff Stirling and NFB film director Michael Rubbo. What happens while the crew awaits its star shows a good deal of the new Cuba, and also of the three Canadians who chose to film the island. (NFB)
Documentary
Daisy: The Story of a Facelift
1
Middle-aged NFB producer Daisy Bellefeuille is about to get a facelift. Rubbo follows the process through her discussions with her friends, consultations with physicians, observation of other facelift patients, and finally the operation and its aftermath. There's also an amateur-intellectual sidebar on the history of physical appearance and its cultural importance- Altogether, a gripping, hour-long documentary about a woman and her facelift.
Documentary
Wet Earth and Warm People
1
This documentary by Michael Rubbo (Waiting for Fidel) offers candid glimpses of Indonesia and its people. Filming in and around the capital of Jakarta, the cameras follow where chance leads, capturing the flavour of life in this fertile crescent of tropical islands. Throughout the film, the focus is on a society caught between the past and the conflicting options for the future - to change or not to change from long-established patterns of life to ones more influenced by western technology.
Documentary
Temiscaming, Québec
1

Temiscaming, Québec

Oct 20, 1976
Temiscaming, Québec is the story of a town's struggle to survive after its main source of employment, the CIP mill, closed down. Part I tells what steps the workers, townspeople and ex-CIP managers took to reopen a mill co-owned and co-managed by the workers; Part II explains the new corporate ownership of the mill, how it works, and its growing pains.
Documentary
1

Jan 10, 1973