Discover Movies

Canada as a refuge for LBGTQ+ immigrants: Yazan from Iraq, Nata from Central Africa, Aida from Iran and Eilyn from Colombia all had to flee their homelands, where violence, threats, hate and rejection prevented them from living their lives and expressing their sexual orientation openly. All they wanted was to be free. From Beirut to Montreal, Quebec City or Vancouver, this ensemble documentary follows the journeys of four people who are determined to change their future. From the terrifying realities they had to flee to the heartbreaking sacrifices they were forced to make, Renaître is a vibrant and luminous tribute to their quiet strength.

Julien Fréchette takes us on the hot pepper road in Mexico, through Quebec, the United States, France and China to meet chiliheads, hot pepper addicts, producers, scientists, historians and of course consumers who will introduce us to the culture and sub-culture that surrounds this unique fruit-spice.

Out of the horrors of war comes a love story. On leave in WWII, Canadian pilot Gordon Devereaux escapes London for the countryside. There he meets local girl Wendy and they fall in love. But he is suddenly transferred to the Pacific and never sees Wendy again. When Wendy dies in 2008, her granddaughter goes on a quest to find her previously unknown grandfather.

An unconfident young man is manipulated into a rural community’s devious scheme and sets out to escape before his life is at risk.

"The Face of Anonymous" by Gary Lang, which profiles Christopher Doyon, a.k.a. Commander X, who has hidden from the FBI in Toronto and Mexico.

Amidst lockdowns and toilet paper shortages, Jack lands a date. The only problem? Jack can't cut onions to save his life. Slicing his finger moments before his date arrives, Jack must endure the pain in a vain attempt to conceal his wound.

A young woman and her dog find a giant nest-like structure in their backyard.

Using archival footage and the melodrama outlined in an email from a junk inbox, worlds of isolation and desperation collide in an ultra short film that brings to life a tale designed to scam someone.

A profile of a Chinese Canadian restaurateur with a big heart, running a successful restaurant, hosting wild karaoke parties & making people happy as the amazing, flamboyant, wonderful drag queen China Doll.

Anomie was inspired by the disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. It also concerns the excesses of capitalism, which have brought us to an unstable and uncertain period in history. Neo-liberal policies and economic globalization have exacerbated the social inequalities we see today. As its title suggests, the video explores the concept of anomie – in the broadest sense of the term – developed by Émile Durkheim. This concept defines the state of a society characterized by the disintegration or disappearance of shared values and norms.

The many names of mullein: hag's taper, Jupiter's rod, flannel leaf, velvet plant, felt-wort, tinder plant, candlewick plant, witch's candle, lady's foxglove, candlewick plant, torches, cowboy toilet paper, and more. Brought by European settlers to what is now known as Canada over 250 years ago, mullein is native to parts of Europe and Asia. The introduced plant was valued for its medicinal abilities and its use as a fish poison. Today, it is considered a noxious weed in so-called Alberta.

The Jewish National Fund's Blue Boxes were a global fundraiser to purchase land in Israel. Weaving a co-founder's diary entries with his descendants' memories, Blue Box investigates the myths that constructed a national icon.

A divorced mother who deals with an absentee baby father loses her daughter to the hands of kidnappers. Now she has to depend on her boyfriend and ex-husband for support while trusting the police to help find her daughter.

Created in only 24 hours for the Okotoks 24hr Horror Film Festival 2021 and withdrawn at the last second. "Not, Violent, I Promise, I Swear", is a film about a random group of people who take shelter in a house during a Kaiju attack.

After the tragic loss of his father, 7-year-old Simon turns to his home Artificial Intelligence communicator, to seek answers while his mother Mary-Anne and twin sister Sophie try to readjust to their new reality.

Child hunters look through scope-cam rifles to aim for the heart in a found-footage portrait of love told through YouTube vlogs of relationship breakups and psycho exes. Cupid’s Fever is part of the anthology 'I Went to a Party Alone' in which YouTube vlogs of random daily life are recast as scenes imbued with mythic allusions. When the hard cuts and juxtapositions reveal a landscape of oppressive social control, the vloggers’ mundane normal soon gives way to the surreal. Seemingly innocuous recordings are fraught with foreboding as the vloggers who yearn for freedom, love and self-expression find themselves unable to escape society’s haunting bondage. MilleFeuille's intention is not to subsume the original footage and its first context into a singular narrative or message, but rather to inhabit the slippery terrain of found-footage multivalence.

Two girls travel to Mexico only to be kidnapped.

Poor hedgehogs! In cold weather they huddle together for warmth but their pointy spines prevent them from getting too close. A quick animated collage music video from talented local animator and musician Shan Pomeroy.

A self-reflexive journey of losing yourself to another person and finding the strength to overcome the loss. A poetic experimental film that explores a woman's grief, in mourning of herself.

A slow sensuous dance gives way to a technical barrage of prismatic shards of love.

"Field of Vision" moves between the real and the imagined, the built and natural worlds, and explores how we see with both our eyes and our minds. It weaves together layers of images and sounds with police blotter reports and descriptions of visual and auditory hallucinations.

A short experimental film that explores ancients natives cities in America. Images of Machu Pichu, Sacsayhuaman, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and Mesa Verde had been blow up from Super 8 to 16 mm, handheld developed and reticulated to create an evocative view of our past.

Dear Jackie is a cinematic letter to Jackie Robinson, the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball, after a stint with the minor-league Montreal Royals, and a key contributor to the civil rights movement in the United States. The film addresses Robinson directly and recounts the current situation of the Black community in Little Burgundy, once known as the “Harlem of the North,” drawing interesting parallels between the two eras. Through eloquent interviews, the filmmaker paints a portrait of racism and racial inequality in Montreal and Quebec as a whole. Presenting a unique historical and social perspective, Henri Pardo has made an important film that deconstructs the myth of a post-racial Quebec society.

This film shares the story of Camp Morningstar, a sacred camp established on the east side of Lake Winnipeg that was erected in response to the proposal of a silica sand mine project.

Martin calls his family who lives in the United States. He has not seen his parents in over a year. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, he has been in Canada. In this documentary, Martin explores isolation, pain, memories, and the importance of family through photomontage.

Musher peels back the veil behind the bond that four women have between their dogs and the world of sled-dog racing. As each woman prepares for the Copperdog annual race, we reveal the intimate insight into the mushing community, devotion to that lifestyle, and how women influence the sport.

The transition that humanity is going through at this time offers an opportunity for deep inner transformation and awakening to our true nature.

In 1986, three city blocks in downtown Winnipeg were demolished to make way for a shopping centre/utopian community space called Portage Place.

In this Channel -12 Christmas special, Rob P. Steal learns the true meaning of Christmas, but not without committing a little crime along the way.

The crucial work of reducing Edmonton's ecological footprint is done by some of the most marginalized people in its community.

In a potpourri of sparkles, musical numbers and documentary interview, Bistro Girls uses animation to explore the inescapable passion that drives artists, no matter their walk of life.

Revisit the legendary 1990 tire fire of St-Amable, QC as a small-time UFOlogy reporter seeks out a woman rumoured to have been abducted by aliens, and discovers a brilliant blind sculptor. An animated walk on the weird side with a distinctive local flavour

Nous le Futur is an intergenerational love letter that creates a bilingual ¨hauntology¨ from interviews on historical memory with Parisian residents. Within this multiyear audio archive; listen to reveries on historical melancholy, Mai ´68, the Algerian Civil War or ¨les événements,¨ French immigration, decolonization, and rising European nationalism.

A young woman talks about her journey, which took her from her original community to an urban environment. After experiencing a culture shock in the city, this is where she wants to live from now on. Iskwew-ishkueu: a gentle film born from a strength of resilience.

A disjointed process of the filmmaker’s mother making katanga (ka-tinn-yaa) in analog film. A simple dish which represents survival, kinship and resourcefulness.

Mutterseelenallein follows the story of a lone man scared to travel beyond the confines of his home. When the unthinkable happens he is forced to come to terms with his escape from reality and realize what is most important to him.

Between Parc-Extension and the town of Mont-Royal, a scar in space creates a strange dichotomy between two neighborhoods.

Animal Macula is the result of in-depth archaeological work into the depiction of animals in world cinema over the past 125 years. From the bulk of this sometimes memorable and sometimes forgotten work, Sylvain L’Espérance provides a thoughtful compilation that highlights the complex, troubled, and often violent relationship between humans and animals. The masterful editing presents a sprawling network imbued with meaning, letting the images speak for themselves and interact freely with each other. With this fascinating film, L’Espérance continues a cinematic exploration that opens up new avenues in his work. Despite a tendency toward abstraction, the filmmaker seems increasingly anchored in reality, showcasing an admirably lucid creativity.

A hybrid-documentary film that follows a queer Urdu poet as she traces the connections between quantum physics and political movements in South Asia.

A video essay on the extinction of the Kauai O'o bird, a songbird native to the Hawaiian island. The short film takes us through its very last recorded song, and its continued digital life in online media.

After her mother dies, Fatima assumes a routine of care for her father and younger sister, but her world starts to close in on her as the days of Taliban arrival grow closer. Through video diaries and phone conversations, she stays in touch with a friend overseas, giving us a sobering glimpse into the looming uncertainty she faces.

An intimate look at the journey of members of the Queer, Christian community of colour and their attempts to answer the question: Can you be both Christian and Queer? In this feature length documentary, we hear and see diverse members of the LGBTQI+ community, including high profile queer activists and Queer clerics, in places like Jamaica, New York, London, and Los Angeles. They each have their own unique ways of amplifying their voices and finding their way back to spiritual health, despite the shaming tactics of some Christian institutions.

From Residential School to alcoholism, it was all a learning process." Chief Smoke is dying. As the leader of the Dakota Plains, he has spent 40 years fighting the Canadian government and he has a new plan.

Ten women are connected by a telephone chain. When one of them goes missing, the other women mobilize to find her.

In 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic raging at historic proportions in the background, the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) decided it was its duty to posterity to document the crisis. The communications team took out the mics and cameras to capture what went on inside the hospital walls for one full year.

When you look into your mothers eyes, you know that this is the purest love you could find on this earth. But imagine if you will, a world where that isn’t the reality. Imagine a reality where a mothers love is weaponized against you, to be used as a reward, and taken away as punishment. Where the person who is supposed to keep you safe from harm is the one causing it. Furthermore, your culture dictates that it is your responsibility as the child to love and protect your mother. But wait. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? This is where we open Anak

Forgotten is an animated short film that offers a window into the isolation the elderly face when living alone. I was inspired to make this film against the backdrop of the pandemic and the growing criticisms of Canada’s response to keeping the elderly safe during this time. With an ageing population in various states of mental deterioration, many tragically didn’t fully grasp why family had stopped visiting during the pandemic. Drawn using traditional and digital media, Forgotten presents and explores one person’s loneliness, sorrow, and deteriorating grip on reality.

They meet in the dark of the night. Women, sisters, friends: a feminist group that comes together to leave writings on the walls of Montreal. Their challenge: to raise awareness in order to put an end to the systemic violence suffered by women and gender minorities. Sober collages for a strong message: feminicides must stop!

An exploration of micro and macro scales of time - from a single generation to the entire expanse of the universe's lifespan.

Bonus, a clumsy and reckless father, has custody of his young son for the day. Abated by his recent breakup, he notices that the child is developing a beautiful relationship with his ex-girlfriend’s new lover. Afraid that he is being replaced, he decides to dazzle him with a father-son moment tinged with magic.

Am I him or am I not? Did I know her or did she know me? I'm not certain who they are yet I feel I have always known them and I can’t help but wonder what became of them. A figure appears then dissolves as the film becomes a memory map. An other figure then appears and merges into the topography of the aged film before once again the first figure briefly reappears.

Manitoba’s most famous comedian of invention, Al Simmons, has translated the story of this popular comic opera from Italian to English and plays all the characters in his condensed version. Rosina is in love with the Count who is pretending to be someone else. Dr. Bartolo is determined to wed Rosina, and Figaro, the jack-of-all-trades barber, is having a bad hair day!