Picture of Light

That Never Happened: Canada's First National Internment Operations

The documentary tells the little known story of thousands of Ukrainian and Eastern Europeans that were interned in Canadian camps during the First World War.

The National Parks Project

In an increasingly urban nation, Canada’s national parks are a treasured escape into extraordinary beauty and rugged wilderness. If the Group of Seven were an introduction to the landscape’s majesty, National Parks Project is the next logical chapter. Fifty-two contemporary artists from across the country, whose talents are as diverse as the parks they set out to explore, used their surroundings as a source of inspiration to blend musical and cinematic skills into collaboratively crafted vignettes. Epic in its ambition to celebrate these locales during Parks Canada’s centennial year, this omnibus film resonates with the knowledge that our unprotected land is more vulnerable than ever. Including films by Zacharius Kunuk, Peter Lynch, Sturla Gunnarsson and John Walker, and music by Sarah Harmer, Sam Roberts, Cadence Weapon and The Besnard Lakes, among many others, National Parks Project is a one-of-a-kind documentary experience.

Oil Sands Karaoke

Oil Sands Karaoke is a documentary about five oil patch workers vying to win a karaoke contest in one of the most controversial places on the planet - Northern Alberta's infamous Oil Sands. These five characters know they're at the center of a global controversy and yet they continue to work there under extremely arduous physical conditions for long hours for extended periods without a single day off. Why? Obviously for the high wages. But what could motivate a person in this situation to sing karaoke, let alone take it seriously? A documentary unlike any other, Oil Sands Karaoke will make us laugh, sing along, and perhaps re-examine our biases

Digging in the Dirt

A documentary about the psychological costs of working in Alberta's oil sands and the mental health crisis that's been ignored for a decade.

Hookers on Davie

Filmmakers Holly Dale and Janis Cole explore the culture of Davie Street, located in the underbelly of Vancouver, where dozens of prostitutes work and live every day. Surprisingly, they find that the sex trade there is stable and largely non-violent, and that the women who work on Davie Street meet daily to discuss safety and health issues and don't use pimps. The film also includes candid interviews with the prostitutes and footage of negotiations with potential clients.

Balkan Melody

What Swiss director Stefan Schweitert did for accordion music and for yodeling (Accordion Tribe, Cinequest, 2005; Echoes of Home, Cinequest 2008) he now does for traditional Balkan music. This wonderful film is also a love story – and a door into a world of musical wonders.

Flow State

Warren Miller's Flow State is a place of such singular focus and connection with the environment that, in this place, the faster you ride, the slower time passes. The Flow State exists anywhere crisp winter air shocks your lungs and sunlight refracts snowflakes, allowing you to emerge from this state improved - happier, more confident and more aware of your surroundings. So buckle up, because Warren Miller's 63rd film will take you into the zone...the moment...the groove...the center...the Flow State.

Thursday

Thursday shot from filmmaker Galen Johnson's high-rise apartment during COVID-19 “lockdown” in Winnipeg, captures people going about their daily routines in the city's eerily empty streets, yards and parking lots, on their balconies and on the riverbanks. The extreme distance and the diminutive scale of humans is paired with sound close-ups—a combination that embodies the strange, heightened intensity of feeling of the time, knowing an era-defining tragedy is happening yet being so physically removed.

Nuxalk Radio

A day in the life of 91.1, Nuxalk Radio, a radio station built to help keep the Nuxalk language alive while broadcasting the laws of the lands and waters.

Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make Believe

Kindness, creativity, inclusivity, and a touch of magic makes the world a brighter place. Explore the story and impact of Canadian entertainer Ernie Coombs and his iconic series, Mr. Dressup, which enriched the lives of five generations.

The Spirit of the Tsilqot'in People is Hovering over the Supreme Court

The Tŝilhqot’in Nation is represented by six communities in the stunningly beautiful interior of British Columbia. Surrounded by mountains and rivers, the Tŝilhqot’in People have cared for this territory for millennia. With increasing external pressures from natural-resource extraction companies, the communities mobilized in the early 21st century to assert their rightful title to their lands. Following a decision by the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2007 that only partially acknowledged their claim, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation’s plight was heard in the Supreme Court of Canada. In a historic decision in 2014, the country’s highest court ruled what the Tŝilhqot’in have long asserted: that they alone have full title to their homelands.

Highway of Tears

Discover the endless highway in British Columbia where over 40 indigenous women and girls (by unofficial estimates) have disappeared since the 1970s.

Architecture of Infinity

How can structures, which take up defined, rigid portions of space, make us feel transcendence? How can chapels turn into places of introspection? How can walls grant boundless freedom? Driven by intense childhood impressions, director Christoph Schaub visits extraordinary churches, both ancient and futuristic, and discovers works of art that take him up to the skies and all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. With the help of architects Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli, and Álvaro Siza Vieira, artists James Turrell and Cristina Iglesias, and drummer Sergé “Jojo” Mayer, he tries to make sense of the world and decipher our spiritual experiences using the seemingly abstract concepts of light, time, rhythm, sound, and shape. The superb cinematography turns this contemplative search into a multi-sensory experience.

La fièvre du castor

This lively satire uses animation and a pseudo-documentary style to depict Canada's search for a national identity. The National Scream explains, amongst other elements of Canadiana, how and why the beaver became the country's symbol.

Place of the Boss: Utshimassits

In the '60s, the Mushuau Innu had to abandon their 6,000-year nomadic culture and settle in Davis Inlet. Their relocation resulted in cultural collapse and widespread despair.

Pea Soup

Images and sounds are spliced together in this journey to the heart of the political, economic and cultural oppression of the Quebec people. A reflection on neo-colonial exploitation and the cancer of alienation. To the very Canadian multiculturalism of Trudeau and the métissage of the multinationals, celebrated by the high priests of the dominant ideology, is contrasted the idea of acculturation, even deculturation. A way of resisting as good as any other.

The Laundry Room

The key to the communal laundry room in the block of flats on the Rue de Genève 85 in Lausanne serves a much greater function than merely unlocking the door. This encounter between a symbol of typical Swiss mentality with a penchant for order and the tenants who have been housed here by the city’s social services department is not something to be taken for granted. Although the laundry room is normally located in the cellar, the tenants in this building share a tiny laundry room off the entrance hall because the cellar is reserved for prostitution. To maintain order and cleanliness, the landlord hires Claudina, a new “laundry woman”.

Queen of Condoms

Ceschi and Stamm's documentary tells the incredible story of Monika Krause, a former East German citizen, who became Fidel Castro's Sexual Education Minister. After 20 years in Cuba, Krause set the Cuban sexual revolution in motion: in favor of a woman's right to sexual fulfillment and legal abortion, and against exclusion of homosexuals, she acquired the title "Queen of Condoms". A film about potent female agitators, staunch macho men and Caribbean love lives.

Flare - A Ski Trip

A short documentary about freestyle skiing made for the New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department.

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