National Film Board of Canada's Bear 71 wins Cyber Lion Award

The National Film Board of Canada has won the Gold Cyber Lion Award for the interactive documentary and website Bear 71 at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which ended on June 23.

The honour, the first-ever award for an NFB interactive production, goes to Toronto digital design firm Jam3 (creative director Pablo Vio).

The film began as a documentary but wound up being an interactive, immersive website that blurs the line between surveillance and subjective experience.

Bear 71 conveys the true story of a female grizzly bear that was monitored by wildlife conservation officers from 2001 to 2009. She was trapped and given a radio-collar at the age of three, and her activity was tracked and recorded. Footage from motion-trigger trail cameras captured images for the project.

The viewer can change the direction of the narrative, including exploring the environment and encountering other animal inhabitants, by clicking on various options on the screen.

Bear 71 was created by Vancouver-based media artist Jeremy Mendes, Alberta-based filmmaker Leanne Allison, and the NFB's Vancouver-based Digital Studio executive producer and chief technologist Loc Dao.

The film opened this year's DOXA Documentary FIlm Festival in May.

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