The Day Off
1980 · 10m · Canada
Directed by Sidney Goldsmith
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
Beachgoers enjoying a day off are repeatedly reminded of tragic events happening elsewhere, reflecting on the solace sought from the working world.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 1980 NFB animation that actually *resists* saying anything definitive—it just holds the contradiction between leisure and catastrophe without resolving it, which is more interesting than the earnest social-conscience shorts that usually do this work.
Goldsmith's formal restraint here—the way the animation lets Beach moments and news intrusions occupy the same frame without hierarchy—situates this thoughtfully within the NFB's documentary-animation tradition and the broader 70s/80s interrogation of public and private space.
The decision to animate rather than film this premise unlocks something crucial: the Beach sequences gain an almost dreamlike remove that makes the intrusions sting sharper, and that tonal collision between the two animated registers does the film's entire argument without needing dialogue.