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Looking for Dawn is a personal search of a filmmaker to explore how the skin color of a bi-racial actress could ultimately define her roles, career, self image and identity. Throughout interviews and archival footage Dawn Wilkinson explore how other bi-racial actresses are creating their own work in order to express themselves.

Scenes from Madonna: Truth or Dare and the music video for Madonna's "Vogue" along with other various videos are spliced together with a letter from a former sexual partner of Madonna's scrolling on the bottom of the screen. Part 4 of 7-part bio-feature Public Lighting (2004).

In this artistic exploration of the life and work of writer Henry Miller, filmmaker Joe Kishton skillfully weaves clips of films and interviews of Miller with the music of Laurie Anderson. From Miller himself we hear of his difficult relationship with his parents, and of his need to create, even (or especially) when his message abrades social mores.

A vignette on the travelling calliope (also known as steam organ), a musical instrument that produces sound by sending steam through large locomotive whistles.

Urban architecture as seen through the eyes of four female veterans in the field.

Documentary about Canadian composer John Wyre.

Canada struggles to preserve her borders after the Treaty of Washington in this feature documentary. The country's survival as a nation independent of the United States rests in the balance, as the film shows in its exploration of historical context, underlying factors, and possible alternatives. Part 9 of the series Struggle for a Border: Canada's Relations with the United States.

An unemployed man tries to become the poet laureate of his hometown, a small Canadian town in the middle of nowhere.

Canadian power-rock hitmakers Triumph revisit their ’80s heyday and prepare to meet devotees in this doc from Sam Dunn and Marc Ricciardelli

This short documentary depicts the search, discovery and authentication of the only known Norse settlement in North America - Vinland the Good. Mentioned in Icelandic manuscripts and speculated about for over two centuries, Vinland is known as "the place where the wild grapes grow" and was thought to be on the eastern coast between Virginia and Newfoundland. In 1960 a curious group of house mounds was uncovered at l'Anse aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland by Drs. Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad of Norway. Added to the United Nations World Heritage List, l'Anse aux Meadows is considered one of the most important archaeological sites in the world.

When Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it.

Analysis of sadomasochism and our obsession with power through the centuries.

Every World Cup, Every winner.The next in the Super8 series, only bigger and better. Illusionary Lines has been with the World Cup circus for the entire journey capturing every winner of a World Cup ripping in an isolated and unique part of the globe. Travel to Africa, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Finland (Arctic circle), Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, Spain and Switzerland in a never ending journey to find the Illusionary Line.

Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh puts a human face on a national tragedy: the murders and disappearances of an estimated 500 Aboriginal women in Canada over the past 30 years. Explores the deep historical, social, and economic factors that contribute to this epidemic of violence against Native women.

This short documentary offers an early example of the challenges faced by working mothers. As women entered the workforce in greater numbers during WWII, their young children were cared for by others. At day nurseries, trained staff supervised children’s meals, health and play. Toddlers are taught how to wash and dress themselves and to put their toys away tidily. The film is an intriguing portrait of the nascent mid-20th century world of work for women and their families. - NFB

On a film reel electrified by static charges, we meet five people who survived the impact of lightning.

In July 2018, Maya Farrell attempted her second crossing of Lake Ontario, following in the footsteps of great Canadian female marathon swimmers Marilyn Bell and Vicki Keith. Featuring interviews with Bell and Keith, 'The Impossible Swim' explores the legacy, what it takes physically and mentally to be a marathon athlete, and the new rising regime.

This film takes us inside the world of cricket and the daily life of Montreal's Parc Extension - one of Canada's poorest yet most vibrant immigrant neighbourhoods.

“Haddad’s The Beautiful Room is Empty explores the loaded memories of space through his aunt, Marie, (re)visiting her childhood home and recalling the abuse she endured there. […] What have the walls been listening to? What have they absorbed, retained, and released upon a return, a farewell?" (Sarah Sarofim, Canadian Art)

An independent short film documentary directed by and starring high school students that focuses on life passions, music, childhood, and the shaping of a modern teen (Riley Kernick).

In an oil-scarce world, we know there are sacrifices to be made in the pursuit of energy. What no one expected was that a tiny Native community, living down the river from Canada's tar sands, would reach out to the world for help — and be heard.

Black sleeping-car porters who worked on Canada's railways from the early 1900s through the 1960s were proud men and well-respected by their community, but harsh working conditions prevented them from being promoted to other railway jobs until 1955 when porter Lee Williams took his fight to the union.

Directed by Michael Ostroff (Pegi Nicol: Something Dancing About Her (2004)) and produced by Mary Sexton (Gemini Award Winning Tommy... A Family Portrait (2001)), and Heather Eustace, To Think Like a Composer is a joyful and exuberant introduction to the world of Canadian composer, conductor, educator and renaissance man Stephen Hatfield. A documentary that reveals the creative collaborative excitement and tension as Hatfield and Susan Knight and Shallaway Youth Chorus of St. John's produce an opera performed by youth for adults. An opera based on the novel Ann and Seamus by Kevin Major. There are no patronizing platitudes in Hatfield's work. The opera deals with sadness, heartbreak, and the joy of existence - the Newfoundland ethos - as interpreted in a story of shipwreck, survival, and love on the Isle Aux Morts off the southwest coast of Newfoundland in 1828.

The curmudgeonly bicycle maker attempts to set a cycling distance record.

Documentary about the ten days the director spent in Moscow, during the 1986 Moscow Youth Festival, as kind of a gay delegate.

The seventh thematic mini documentary about revolutionary filmmaker Norman McLaren; this time with a focus on his collaborator Maurice Blackburn.

Strangers, friends, lovers, and coworkers pair up to fist fight on camera. Consensual violence is, bizarrely, quite intimate. There was only one hospital visit while making this film.

Moving image artist Lily Alexandre forces herself to ask an unspeakable question: should trans people make ourselves disappear?

The film explores the process of preparing for a traditional Indigenous vision quest.

First Nations fight to end grizzly bear trophy hunting in the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia. The Heiltsuk, Kitasoo Xai'xais and Gitga'at First Nations enforce a ban by using Coastal Guardian Watchmen, while the Raincoast Conservation Foundation purchases trophy hunting licenses in the area to prevent a hunt from taking place. The film offers unique access to Canada's First Nations and a breathtaking view of the majestic animals inhabiting the Great Bear Rainforest, including the elusive Spirit Bear.

Ancestral Threads follows Joleen Mitton on her mission to use fashion as medicine for Vancouver's Indigenous community. A former fashion model, Joleen is now a community leader and founder of Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week.

Black and white images shot at night. A camera roams the streets of Montreal in search of sounds, smells and sensations. From the first frame, NIGHTS stakes its ground as a poetic, nomadic experience, an open-ended essay about the countless inner worlds that inhabit the big-city night. Testimonials and confessions gradually emerge, from a photographer to a truck driver, from a baker to a blind woman who had to learn to “see” the world differently. Their experiences overlap, but are unalike. We have the feeling of living different lives, against the grain of normality, and we are not alone in this. Diane Poitras achieves nothing less than the reconstitution of a parallel community.

Trying to freeze time is an illusion. Whatever we do, life unfolds in one direction. Memory is a Dying Horse is yet another desperate attempt to challenge the irreversibility of time. A sparse, raw, somehow childish collage of reminiscences filmed on Super 8 between Syria, France and Canada. The film is accompanied with musical experimentation by Stefan Christoff.

Is there a connection between bible stories of contacts with the gods and the modern day UFO phenomenon?

Film about the gender binary. What is it, how does it manifest itself in our minds and our lives - and how can we go beyond? Just how different are “men” and “women?” Are they even two distinct groups? This film follows individuals and communities, experts and artists around the globe who right now are radically and joyfully redefining gender as we know it.

Everything about the Quebec visual artist Lyne Lapointe reflects the grip of art on her life. Lesbian and feminist, she tirelessly highlights in her work the challenging position of women in society and in the art world. This concern is the common thread in the story of her life and projects. Despite a serious accident that ended her first series, revolutionary urban creations that earned her international reputation, she reinvents her approach with the tenacity that characterizes her, ultimately becoming the subject of significant exhibitions in Quebec, Canada, and abroad.

Living with Giants delves into the imaginative world of Paulusie Kasudluak, a young Inuk facing responsibilities as he transitions into adulthood. The film portrays his thoughts, his dreams, and his beliefs, and allows for an intimate immersion into his life. Paulusie is a caring son to his ailing father and a good boyfriend. But what begins as the story of an innocent teenager quickly becomes the struggle of a young man coping with the guilt of having made a huge mistake. Tragically, Paulusie takes the most dramatic decision and takes his own life. Living with Giants remains a poetic journey of resilience that echoes issues that are far greater than Paulusie's personal story.

My Father's Journey explores how an individual of 82 years of age built his own spiritual castle to protect himself and his precious culture against constant political upheavals and the assimilation of the dominant Chinese modern culture.

McManus & Morgan is the oldest (and once most prosperous) paper shop in Los Angeles. Aardvark Letterpress is a family-run printing business dating back to the 1940s. Located on the same corner in Downtown LA, the two shops struggle to make ends meet in a decreasingly tactile world. A rare and fascinating inside peek into the archaic worlds of letterpress and paper-selling, this short documentary is a strangely touching story of two interdependent businesses hanging onto their livelihoods and passions, doing whatever it takes to keep their crafts – and dreams – alive.

As they get ready for the day, three young Black women discuss the public perception of their Blackness in relation to their cultivation of a strong sense of self. Wash Day is an intimate exploration into how private, domestic acts such as washing your hair or putting on makeup become a significant re-acquaintance with the body, before and after navigating the politics of one's outwardly appearance. Sundance Ignite 2021

This film is about the francization of Québec that has taken place since the Parti Québécois won power from the Liberals in 1976. It shows how the once powerful anglophone community is now questioning its very survival. It discusses some of the motivating forces behind Québécois nationalism. The film concludes by asking if the Canadian nation can survive if neither of its major language groups is welcome in the territory of the other.

The hunters are the Innu people and the bombers are the air forces of several NATO countries, which conduct low-level flights over the Innu's hunting terrain. The impact of the jets is hotly debated by peace groups, Indigenous people, environmentalists and the military. But what is often overlooked are the many complex changes underway in Innu society, as social and technological changes confront a traditional hunting culture.

From 2001 to 2005, Jesse F. Keeler and Sebastien Grainger played 546 shows around the world. In 2006, they played zero. This is the story of the life, death, and reunion of Canadian dance-punk two-piece band Death From Above 1979.

Stranded in tents and detention centers in Greece and Turkey, or in temporary housing throughout Europe are thousands of Palestinian refugees from Syria whose predicament started 70 years earlier with the expulsion of their parents and grandparents from Palestine. The director, Hala Gabriel, herself a Palestinian refugee from Syria, embarks on a journey of exploration to meet relatives and former residents of her family's hometown Tantura, Palestine to discover why she, like them, is a refugee. She learns about the battle to take the village, the internment camps where her father (aged 15 at the time) and others found themselves for months, and the journey of being without a homeland which has transcended multiple generations to this day. At a time when refugees throughout Europe and United States are being vilified and denied entry, this film shows that all they want is to return home or find a place they can call home.

This short film presents a discussion about the role of merchants on Fogo Island, and of the feasibility of cooperatives.

Waiting for Sancho is an ontological investigation into a place where cinema becomes something more than cinema. Filmed in high-definition colour over five days in the Canary Islands of Fuerteventura and Tenerife, Waiting for Sancho is a kind of experimental “making of” the critically acclaimed El cant dels ocells (Birdsong_/_Le chant des oiseaux). A particular take on the Biblical story of The Three Kings en route to the baby Jesus, El cant dels ocells premiered at the Quinzaine des Realisateurs at Cannes 2008.

Norm is a love story pure and simple. But there is nothing simple about it. A loving sister decides to take her older brother with Down syndrome into her home to provide the care and the sense of family she feels he has been denied since childhood. Like many aging adults living with Down syndrome, he begins to experience the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Her greatest fears have become a reality, "What if she can't keep him at home forever?"

Capture, document, record, share, restart. We are making ourselves more memorable than ever by archiving every bit of our daily lives. What if we lost something along the way?

Largely composed of immigrants and first-generation Canadians from Vancouver’s suburbs, The Notic underground basketball collective overcame all odds to achieve global fame 20 years ago. In defiance of their high school coaches’ casual racism and desire for oppressive conformity, this gregarious group discovered self-expression through streetball’s loose structure and aversion to rules. Bursting onto the scene at the NBA-sponsored Hoop It Up tournament near Science World, the group unleashed a devastating arsenal of bravura tricks and moves. DIY VHS highlights of their showstopping exploits would soon be collected on their first "mixtape". With copies finding their way to every corner of the globe, it was anointed "the bible of streetball".

Samadhi Part 2 (It's not what you think) is the second installment of a series of films exploring Samadhi, an ancient Sanskrit word which points toward the mystical or transcendent union that is at the root of all spirituality and self inquiry.

Rousing tales of the North-West Mounted Police are brought to life through photos and artists' sketches. In 1873, the North-West Mounted Police were established to maintain law and order in the North-West Territories. They undertook a trek from Fort Dufferin, south of Winnipeg, to Fort Whoop-up, near present-day Lethbridge, Alberta. The force raised the flag and proclaimed the Queen's Law, ensuring that the Canadian West would not become a lawless, American-style frontier.

In this feature-length documentary, six teenage girls, aged 14 to 16, agree to open up and have their private worlds invaded by the camera. They have to face problems that they intend to take on "to the end": early experience of sexuality, belonging to a gang, relationships with parents, social tolerance, friendship... They live tender and pure lives in their own way.

A visit to the "Indians of Canada" pavilion at Expo 67, Montréal. Inside there are Indigenous artifacts, but even more arresting are the printed placards that tell the story of the Indigenous peoples in North America, written without rancor but recalling what their contact with European settlers has cost in freedom of movement, in loss of land, and in loss of health of body and spirit.