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The First Emperor of China

This historical drama tells the story of Qin Shihuang, who unified China's vast territory and declared himself emperor in 221 B.C. During his reign, he introduced sweeping reforms, built a vast network of roads and connected the Great Wall of China. From the grandiose inner sanctum of Emperor Qin's royal palace, to fierce battles with feudal kings, this film re-creates the glory and the terror of the Qin Dynasty, including footage of Qin's life-sized terra cotta army, constructed 2,200 years ago for his tomb.

The First Emperor of China

5.3 1989
The Congress

For 200 years, the United States Congress has been one of the country's most important and least understood institutions. In this elegant, thoughtful and often touching portrait, Ken Burns explores the history and promise of this unique American institution. Using historical photographs and newsreels, evocative live footage and interviews with David Broder, Alistair Cooke, Cokie Roberts, Charles McDowell and others, the award-winning film chronicles the personalities, events and issues that have animated the first 200 years of Congress and, in turn, our country.

The Congress

7.6 1989
Being Different

A tribute to the spirit and humanity of people who are physically different from the average: very tall and very large men and women, a bearded woman and her long-time husband, Siamese twins joined at the midsection, and several little people including actor Billy Barty. We meet some at Gibsonton, Florida, where carnival folk winter. They talk about their lives and accomplishments. The camera also goes on the road to visit a grandfather with a distinctive face, a legless mechanic from Kentucky on a second honeymoon in LA, a marathon runner and motivational speaker who has no feet, a karate student with partial limbs, and an armless, down-to-earth mom in Texas.

Being Different

6.8 1981
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.

Hookers on Davie

5.0 1984
Poetry in Motion

More than 20 contemporary North American poets recite, sing, and perform their work. Early in the film, Charles Bukowski talks about the energy of poets and of a poem. These poets are the children of Walt Whitman and of Charles Olson, incantatory and oratorical, radical, sometimes incorporating contemporary political imagery. Black Mountain poets, the Beats, minimalists like John Cage, the wordless Four Horsemen, Tom Waits, and others capture aspects of poets as troubadours.

Poetry in Motion

8.0 1982
Splatter: Architects of Fear

Thrill to the action from a battle to the death between beautiful amazons, twisted mutants and sickening, deadly zombies sometime after WWIII as you also watch from behind the scenes as brilliant special effects are constructed by demented master craftsmen, some of whom seem to be losing their grip on reality! Which side of the camera are we really on? How far will these gut-wrenching effects go? The answer is further than ever before - more graphic scenes of violence, perversion, mutilation and slaught per minute than any horror feature ever made!

Splatter: Architects of Fear

4.9 1986
Waterwalker

Naturalist Bill Mason on his journey by canoe into the Ontario wilderness. The filmmaker and artist begins on Lake Superior, then explores winding and sometimes tortuous river waters to the meadowlands of the river's source. Along the way, Mason paints scenes that capture his attention and muses about his love of the canoe, his artwork and his own sense of the land. Mason also uses the film as a commentary on the link between God and nature and the vast array of beautiful canvases God created for him to paint. Features breathtaking visuals and exciting whitewater footage, with a musical score by Bruce Cockburn.

Waterwalker

8.3 1984
Bam Pay A! – Rends-moi mon pays!

In this feature documentary, a Haitian, exiled in Canada for twenty years, returns to his country after the departure of Jean-Claude Duvalier. Through his encounters with former friends, professors and colleagues, the face of this newfound Haiti gradually takes shape… Shot in Haiti after the fall of the Duvalier regime, this film, beyond a simple observation, shares with us the hopes of the Haitian people as well as their fears and uncertainties regarding this country that has yet to be built.

Bam Pay A! – Rends-moi mon pays!

7.0 1986
Standing Alone

Pete Standing Alone is a Blood Indian who, as a young man, was more at home in the White man's culture than his own. Confronted with the realization that his children knew very little about their origins, he became determined to pass down to them the customs and traditions of his ancestors. This film is the powerful biographical study of a 25-year span in Pete's life, from his early days as an oil-rig roughneck, rodeo rider and cowboy, to the present as an Indian concerned with preserving his tribe's spiritual heritage in the face of an energy-oriented industrial age.

Standing Alone

7.0 1982
Kubota

A film featuring architect, sculptor, and musician Nobuo Kubota in a sound-sculpture performance. From within a cage-like structure filled with traditional musical instruments and sound-making devices fashioned from ordinary objects and toys, Kubota creates an aural/visual montage of musical notes and noises. Praised by music educators as a valuable tool for teaching creativity in sound exploration and musical innovation, the film reveals the infinite percussion possibilities of simple objects and presents a portrait of a versatile performer whose imagination has led him far beyond the confines of conventional music. Directed by Jonny Silver - 1982 | 20 min

Kubota

NR 1982
Passiflora

This bold "graffiti" essay on the Pope, Michael Jackson, the Olympic stadium, and the manipulation of the masses, provided a fresh glimmer of hope in a decade of institutional complacency. In Passiflora (named after the anaesthetic tropical flower), the animation, "new music", street theater and dramatization deployed builds on Belanger's observations of the two media stars' simultaneous visits to Montreal to meet with their followers. The film celebrates the resistance shown by a coalition of the unsubmissive: gays, transgendered people, youth, battered women, psychiatric patients, abortion activists and women who have had abortions.

Passiflora

9.0 1986
The Road to Patriation

This feature documentary retraces the century of haggling by successive federal and provincial governments to agree on a formula to bring home the Canadian Constitution from England. This film concentrates on the politicking and lobbying that finally led to its patriation in 1982. Five prime ministers had failed before Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau took up the challenge in the early 1970s. Principal players in this documentary are federal Minister of Justice Jean Chrétien, Prime Minister Trudeau, 10 provincial premiers and a host of journalists, politicians, lawyers, and diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Road to Patriation

9.0 1982
Dancing Around the Table, Part One

Dancing Around the Table: Part One provides a fascinating look at the crucial role Indigenous people played in shaping the Canadian Constitution. The 1984 Federal Provincial Conference of First Ministers on Aboriginal Constitutional Matters was a tumultuous and antagonistic process that pitted Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau and the First Ministers—who refused to include Indigenous inherent rights to self-government in the Constitution—against First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders, who would not back down from this historic opportunity to enshrine Indigenous rights. The conference was Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s last constitutional meeting before he resigned and the process was handed over to his successor, Brian Mulroney.

Dancing Around the Table, Part One

8.0 1987
Speak White

Speak White is a French language poem composed by Québécois writer Michèle Lalonde in 1968. It was first recited in 1970 and was published in 1974 by Editions de l'Hexagone, Montreal. It denounced the poor situation of French-speakers in Quebec and takes the tone of a collective complaint against English-speaking Quebecers. In 1980, Speak White was made into a short motion picture by polemicists Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin, the six-minute film featured actress Marie Eykel reading Lalonde's poem. It was released by the National Film Board of Canada.

Speak White

7.5 1980