Chinese Gems at Animation Fest

“A Salute to the National Film Board of Canada: Program I”(Canada) in English and French; 2 p.m. Sunday at the Nuart. 94 minutes.

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has been the creative leader of world animation for more than 25 years, consistently producing high quality films with imaginative graphic styles and innovative content. The first half of this two-part overview, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Board, includes two Academy Award winners (“Every Child,” “Sand Castle”) and three more Oscar nominees (“Mindscape,” “George and Rosemary” and “The Big Snit”). In “Every Child,” Eugene Fedorenko offers a droll but pointed indictment of the treatment children receive in contemporary society, while Alison Snowden and David Fine gently spoof the problems of a geriatric romance in “George and Rosemary.” Co Hoedemon evokes the processes of creation and disintegration in his elegiac “Sand Castle.” Jacques Drouin uses the difficult pinscreen technique to create a world within an artist’s canvas in “Mindscape,” while Richard Conde creates an equally individual but hilariously skewed world in “The Big Snit.”

*** 1/2

Other programs scheduled for today are “First Program of Films in Competition: Children’s Category,” 10:30 a.m.; “A Tribute to Mel Blanc,” 2 p.m.; “A Salute to New Estonian Animation,” 4 p.m.; “A Salute to New British Animation,” 6 p.m.; “MTV’s ‘Animated Rock,’ ” 8 p.m. and midnight; and “Second Program of Films in Competition,” 9:45 p.m.

Other programs scheduled for Sunday are “Subway to Paradise,” 10:30 a.m.; “Third Program of Films in Competition: Children’s Category,” 12:30 p.m.; “A Tribute to David Hand,” 4 p.m.; “New Soviet Animation,” 6 p.m.; “When the Wind Blows,” 8 p.m.; and “Fourth Program of Films in Competition,” 9:45 p.m. All the screenings are at the Nuart.