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A divorced man, father of a boy, gets together with a colleague from the office, mother of a little girl, which causes some conflicts.

Springtime in Greenland uses '50s cinematic conventions and attitudes to tell a story about the sophomoric inhabitants of a fictional utopia.

The final instalment of this 3-part documentary series about Pierre Elliott Trudeau and René Lévesque spans the decade between 1976 and 1986. The film reveals the turbulent, behind-the-scenes drama during the Quebec referendum and the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution. In doing so, it also traces both Trudeau's and Lévesque's fall from power.

English and French words flash individually over a black background.

A fast-paced documentary about a second generation of punk rockers living in Toronto. It offers insight into this segment of culture by videotaping in the streets, bars, and homes of punks. Conversations are intercut with the music of the punk bands at the core of the scene.

On a beautiful summer’s day in Nunavik, a family enjoys the pleasures of berry picking and fishing as the sound of two Elders throat-singing fills the environment.

A hot day on the well-known beach frequented mostly be Québecers. Throngs of vacationers, beach towels, sand pails, suntan oil. In the midst of the crowd, a pretty blond drifts off into a world of fantasy that becomes increasingly strange.

Newfoundlanders share their food, culture, and homes with a group of Tamil refugees found off the coast.

The Patterson family learns the true meaning of Christmas when Lizzie loses her stuffed bunny.

If you've ever bought a wonder wallet, a food slicer, a canapé maker, a patty stacker, a miracle brush or a super knife, you may know that the CNE, the Calgary Stampede, and virtually every home show, car show, craft show, fall fair and ploughing match in Canada has at least one thing in common. At hallway intersections and bleacher exits work the second cousins of the carnival barker, the crowd pleasers and teasers, jugglers of people, product and pitch: the point-of-sales professionals known as pitchmen. This documentary looks at the psychology of the impulse sale and provides a view of the world of commerce, salesmanship and advertising at the grass-roots level. The men and women featured in the film have mastered the fine art of selling everything you never needed. Shot at fairs and on the set of a late-night TV commercial, the film shows the hard work behind the hustle.

Animated film set to the Coasters song of the same name.

Tinamer is 27 years old when her mother dies. The funeral of this last one makes her relive certain events of her childhood which marked her forever.

Two main characters, a young gay man, and his female (heterosexual) boss exchange stories about their personal problems, (his difficulties about being gay, and his fears about losing his job because of it). She talks of her neglectful husband whom she suspects is having an affair with another woman.

Full of gentle warmth and humour, and with an upbeat reggae score, this feature from the NFB's Alternative Drama program provides an intimate look at the lives of four Black teenagers in Montréal. Some of the issues examined include poverty, teenage pregnancy, racism, and the importance of having a community.

A portrait of Ulayok Kaviok, one of the last of a generation of Inuit, born and bred on the land. Ulayok and her family, like many Inuit today, strive to balance 2 very different worlds. Her skills in making the sealskin boots called kamik may soon be lost in the cultural transformation overtaking her community. Kamik offers a glimpse of those universes and the thread one woman weaves between them.

Short film by Keith Lock.

Combining documentary footage and performance clips, the film traces the origins of Plume Latraverse's career and reveals, through his musicians, some of his hidden aspects. Filmed during the musician's show presented as part of Québec mer et monde 84. "With a look, a glance, a roar, Plume gives himself to the camera. Whole as Haddock, our Captain Harrock'n'Roll finally opens up." (Franco, Nuovo, 1985)

1930's found-footage, slowed down with original music.

A professor is harassed by a man who is convinced he is Jewish.

A chronicle of the three points of a political triangle — the legal left, the illegal (armed) revolution, and the enemy which threatens them both: the armed reactionary right. It is 1987. The dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos has just been overthrown. Newly elected President Corazon Aquino struggles to wrench control of the country from her own military. A Rustling of Leaves poses the key question facing the revolutionaries and the Filipino Left: Should the People’s Movement continue the guerilla war, or do they dare enter legal politics and reveal the hidden face of the revolution?

A pre-operative transsexual defies social barriers to announce to her boss and mother her intentions of marrying her lover Maurice.

The film profiles the Christian Riders motorcycle club, a group of bikers in Toronto who converted to Christianity.

Anne, an art historian, takes a job in a prestigious big-city gallery. Soon Grant, a former lover, turns up and tries to win her back. But Anne still harbors a strong distrust of him and decides to devote herself totally to her work. At the gallery, she manages to uncover the mystery behind a murder and a smuggling plot by her boss. Grant appears in the nick of time to save her from harm's way. He also becomes her latest find and a celebrated new artist. At a showing of his work at the gallery, Grant surprises Anne with his latest work...a neon sculpture of Grouch Marx saying "I Love You". Anne gets the love she lost so many years ago and a new career as gallery manager.

A musical film based on a song by Folles Alliés illustrating the unacceptable insults made to the female body and intellect: sexual harassment, sexist advertisements and video clips, pornography, domestic violence, rape.

Theatrical short made for Canadian Tire Corporation, Ltd.

Either/Or in Chinatown was commissioned by Video Inn and shot in part at the Western Front during Bódy’s 1984 residency. Based on Danish philosopher Søren Kierkega’s Diary of a Seducer, Either/Or in Chinatown speaks to the impossibility of choice as it follows the narrator’s through days spent in attempts to attain the love of ‘Cordelia’.

This short documentary follows Gabe Etchinelle as builds a mooseskin boat as a tribute to an earlier way of life, where the Shotah Dene people would use a mooseskin boats and transport their families and cargo down mountain rivers to trading settlements throughout the Northwest Territories.

Great Days in the Rockies is a film on an early Rocky Mountain photographer, Byron Harmon. Renowned for both his ingenuity and his technique, Harmon made a good living taking and selling his photographs, which depict the characters and events of early Banff. At present, 6 500 negatives of his work are held at the Peter Whyte Archives in Banff.

Recorded for a television program of the same name back in 1983, In Session bills itself as the only known recording of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert King, who was Vaughan's idol and mentor, playing together. That leads to some heavy expectations, which fortunately aren't disappointed, at least if you aren't expecting the customary over-the-top performances Vaughan was famous for. His playing here is much more laid-back and controlled, which is actually a recommendation--the stylistic similarities between teacher and student are that much more pronounced. The songs are mostly King concert staples, with the exception of "Pride and Joy"; highlights include the T-Bone Walker classic "Call It Stormy Monday" and one of King's own, "Overall Junction," which features some excellent guitar solo work. The snippets of recorded conversation between songs are interesting curiosities as well. --Genevieve Williams

In 1983, fifteen Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, landowners went to court to stop the spraying of herbicides by the local subsidiary of a Swedish multinational on forests adjacent to their properties. They found that the testimony of scientists and the support of public opinion, both here and abroad, were not enough to win their case. The film shows their ordeal and the landmark Sydney trial. Concerns raised included potential conflict-of-interest situations where a government must protect citizens' health while supporting certain kinds of industry; the relative value of the political and judicial processes in mediating social problems; and the need for a public forum for debating environmental issues. The film contains outstanding footage from chemical-industry films of the 1950s and recent material about Vietnam veterans affected by Agent Orange.

Harry is a television journalist crossing Canada by train to a family event in Newfoundland. While travelling, the journalist is making a documentary about Canada and reassessing his life in response to a friend’s suicide. - http://tiff.net/CANADIANFILMENCYCLOPEDIA/content/bios/william-d-macgillivray

"The problem is the filming of unstylized reality in such a way that the result does have a style." Part of the tradition of radical cinema the energetic collage of "Sales images" is organized sonic and visual chaos that - citing Magritte ("This is not a pipe") - addresses the issue of representation and illusion.

“I wanted to make a tape about memory, not just ‘about’ memory. I wanted to re-create the actual sensation of memory through texture, colour, mood and movement. I also wanted to examine time in relation to memory and visual experience. With memory, time can be expanded or condensed; it is generally perceived subjectively. Remembering is a distinct effort to collect again what one knows, but memory can be deceptive and past events may be disordered upon recall. In the animated and re-scanned sequence at the end of the tape, the woman exists dislocated from any actual concrete space. She also exists dislocated in time.” -S.R.

Magic in the Sky investigates the impact of television on the Inuit people of the Canadian Arctic. The film also documents the establishment of the first Inuit-language television network, called Inukshuk, which began broadcasting to six Inuit communities in December 1980. The Inuit's efforts to create an indigenous television network mirrors the struggle of any culture trying to preserve its unique identity.

A lively classroom discussion starter, this animated film uses satirical humor to present some of the difficulties graduating students may encounter when looking for work. The film tells of two young people whose career ambitions seem constantly to be thwarted. Their scramble to make a living leads both of them through a succession of odd jobs and, by a strange twist of fate, to a remote lumbering camp. In following their picaresque adventures, the film explores the attitudes needed for surviving in an uncertain world and promotes reflection on how to bridge the gap between ideals and reality.

’4′ originated as a collaborative performance by Deborah Fong, Carol Hackett, Annastacia McDonald and Jeanette Reinhardt as the S.S. Girls, following events and activities of the women’s daily lives on Main Street. The performance was produced by Paul Wong and co-sponsored by the Video Inn. ’4′ explores the lives and personalities of four women as described by one another in the style of a feuding dysfunctional family. ’4′ was developed as a multimedia performance, first staged at Western Front in 1980, then followed by a tour across Canada and into the USA. The scripted multimedia presentations were later adapted to a video work.

A look into the world of early 1980s male strippers in Montreal.

An anthology of sequences from the best films that the National Film Board of Canada produced since its beginnings. Divided by themes and presented by a trio of actors-signers (including Carle's wife Chloé Sainte-Marie) who sings the same song in between the movie excerpts. This movie celebrated the anniversary of the National Film Board in 1985.

This short film serves as a poem-on-film about the coming of the machine age on the eve of World War I. Images and sounds combine to recreate a bygone era of scratchy phonograph records, faded photographs, hand-cranked movie cameras, staccato Morse telegraph messages, and rhythmic steam pumps. Machines of every description were shaping peoples' lives and changing them more rapidly than at any other time in history.

Black Mother Black Daughter explores the lives and experiences of black women in Nova Scotia, their contributions to the home, the church and the community and the strengths they pass on to their daughters.

It seems that Canada don't want to hear about their heroes of the two World Wars, especially in Quebec. In English, La Guerre oubliée means The Forgotten War. Here, we talk about the 1914-18 big thing. This documentary doesn't use old footage, but actors to show us some parts of that war in Quebec. Joe Bocan sings some songs of that period and makes the narrations. There's also some rare veterans of the war who talk.

Far from home and cut off from family and friends, Montreal’s Indigenous homeless population is the focus of No Address. Dreams of a better life in the big city can be met with harsh realities, as the individuals in this documentary recount. Often trying to flee circumstances created by colonialism and the effects of assimilation, the First Nations and Inuit people in this work share frank stories about their lives and the paths that took them to the streets of Montreal. Alanis Obomsawin presents an honest, stark portrayal of endemic homelessness while giving voice to those so often overlooked or made invisible on the streets of every city in Canada.

Growing up gay in small town Nova Scotia in the 50s was the perfect training for survival. Shot on Super 8, the resultant grainy image brings a home movie atmosphere to this story of escape.

From Haiti, images and testimonies that describe the climate that reigned during the aborted elections of November 29, 1987. A powerful military police in the service of a despotic power terrorized an impoverished people that they wanted to keep submissive. The government had succeeded in ousting Duvalier. However, another dictatorship has taken over, and nothing has changed. However, both on the radio and in the streets, the voice of the Haitians was heard with strength and courage. But what if it was all a sham of democracy?

This short documentary offers a reflection on the development of the North, where towns are increasingly being remade in the image of the South and bush pilots are slowly becoming obsolete.

Making Overtures: The Story of a Community Orchestra is a 1985 Canadian short documentary film directed by Larry Weinstein. A small-town orchestra and choir are the focus of this loving and humorous portrait. The film unveils the musician's passion for performance, their imaginative fund-raising methods and collective will to survive. This film includes a colorful cast of characters ranging from students to seniors, from business executives to hog farmers. Holding it all together is the outrageously flamboyant conductor who inspires everyone with his endless enthusiasm. Making Overtures reveals how an entire community us enriched by its orchestra. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Inspired by remarks made by Freud, "Eros nowhere makes its intentions more clear than in the desire to make two things one." and by Nietzsche, "What must these people have suffered to have become this beautiful."

Filmed in a squatter community of Labangon in Cebu, Philippines, Holding Our Ground is the inspiring story of a group of women who have organized collectively to pressure their government for land reform, to establish their own money-lending system and to create shelters for street kids. A story of grassroots organizing that can be a model in both hemispheres.

A superb visual trick that will mystify its audience, this animated film transforms the commonplace into magic.

A history of life on Earth compressed into three minutes.

An unflinching look at daily life in Haiti during and after the rule of Papa Doc Duvalier and his son Baby Doc, this unconventional documentary blends interviews with fiction scenes to expose the country's history of corruption, violence and voodoo. Through the use of historical footage, disturbing images and an interview with Papa Doc himself, the film offers a rare glimpse into the heart of a nation frequently overlooked by rest of the world.

The Polytechnic World allows us to see images created by sounds, thanks to a Casio PT-30. We see the yellow and grey image of the small Casio melting down and then becoming whole again. The soundtrack fades, then rises; it's a theme with variations on a theme. This tape would interest those looking for video with an emphasis on special effects, or who like to watch things metamorphose before their very eyes. This is poetry in motion and we are drawn to it.

Tom comes to Toronto for a reading of his poetry. Tom's ex-lover Michael lives in Toronto but is now married. At Michael's home, surrounded by Michael's wife and dinner guests, the two men sing their secret thoughts to one another.

This is a didactic film in disguise. A progression of brilliant geometric shapes bombard the screen to the insistent beat of drums. The filmmaker programmed a computer to coordinate a highly complex operation involving an electronic beam of light, colour filters and a camera. This animation film, without words, is designed to expose the power of the cinematic medium, and to illustrate the abstract nature of time.

One of a series of short, open-ended dramas designed to stimulate discussion of values and ethics in relation to modern medical technology. This film considers the chronic patient's right to quality care, and the acutely ill patient's right to a hospital bed. Jean is suffering from multiple sclerosis and is almost completely paralyzed. It seems that the only ones who care about her are the nurses. With the arrival of a patient in need of an operation, it becomes apparent that chronic patients have little priority.