BATMILK is a comically macabre film about an oafish ghoul who faces ruin when his soft exposed brain is unexpectedly killed. A bizarre form of predatory behaviour feeds the ghoul with new life. Entirely different in mood and animation style, PEARL is a tender film about longing and memory in the aged. A lonely old lady sits in an empty room, knitting. As her thoughts wander, her dreams take the shape of fanciful knitted creatures and objects that cocoon her in a pattern of wonder and comfort.

Cédric Louis and Claude Barras' LAND OF THE HEADS swoops into Ottawa with dark, dense, and funny images reminiscent of Tim Burton's expressionist animation. Parodying classic horror films, the film is a ghoulishly funny children's story about a vampire forced to go out every night to separate kids from their heads. Why? His vain, domineering wife wants to replace her wrinkled head with a young and pretty one. LAND OF THE HEADS was coproduced by Michael Fukushima (NFB) and Claude Barras (Hélium Films).

Commissioned by the NFB for the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Foundation, Howie Shia's PEGGY BAKER FOUR PHRASES is a brief animated documentary that blends spare live-action with swirling animation to depict Canadian dance legend Peggy Baker's view of the intersection between her art and life. Produced by Fukushima (NFB), the film was created to celebrate Baker at the Governor General's Performing Arts Award gala.

In Inés Sedan's accomplished first film, THE MAN WHO SLEPT, a young woman gazes lovingly at her husband, who sleeps day and night. But the slumbering body is only a memory, one that becomes increasingly oppressive. This vibrantly textured animated film is a work about resilience. It takes us on a journey through darkness toward a new awakening. THE MAN WHO SLEPT was co-produced by Ron Dyens and Aurélia Prévieu (Sacrebleu Productions, France), Marcel Jean and Galilé Marion-Gauvin (L'Unité centrale) and Marc Bertrand (NFB).

The Rarities program will include Guy Glover's LINING THE BLUES (1939) Jim McKay's BID IT UP SUCKER (1944), George Dunning's CADET ROUSELLE (1947), Colin Low's THE ROMANCE OF TRANSPORTATION IN CANADA (1952), Gerald Potterton's MY FINANCIAL CAREER (1962), Eliot Noyes' ALPHABET (1966), Yvon Mallette's BOOMSVILLE (1968), George Geertsen's KLONDIKE GOLD (1980), Donald McWilliams'  ALOUD BAGATTE (1983), John Weldon's THE LUMP (1991), Anita Lebeau's LOUISE (2003) and Paul Morstad's WALKING CATFISH BLUES (2004).