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The autobiopic "My Life in 5 Minutes" tells a life story with a bittersweet song, animation and family snaps. Some photos hold painful or awkward members for the artist; through computer animation, she enlarges her own eyes to blink the pain away.

In this feature-length documentary, photographer Nance Ackerman describes the havoc prescription painkiller OxyContin wreaked in the already weakened Cape Breton town of Glace Bay. The film guides us through a culture of economic and social depression where we encounter men and women at different stages of dependency. Demystifying the world of the addict while showing us the complex social nexus that led to such despair, Cottonland emphasizes the importance of a collective approach to tackling addiction.

Wildly popular entertainer, inventor of astounding gadgets, and all around nutty guy Al Simmons delivers a big dose of daffy to your DVD player. Continuing in Al’s tradition of offbeat unpredictability here’s one hour of wackiness that can't fail to delight. Loopy vaudeville-inspired routines connect six madcap music videos mixing adult and children’s humour. The result is entertainment we can all enjoy. This is truly a tour-de-force of ingenious, charming silliness.

Part 3 of 7-part bio-feature Public Lighting (2004).

A cyberspace encounter turns into a trans/polysexual vegan-docu-porno featuring urban veggie lovers speaking out on dating, intimacy and sex in a meat-centered culture.

A short musical drawing from the real-life exploits of lobotomist Dr. Walter Freeman.

Suite: INDIAN is a series of short films. It contains history, mystery and magic. Participating in the creation are artists, actors, musicians and dancers mostly based on the Six Nations Reserve. Each story chronicled expresses the challenges embodied in contemporary Native North American society. Titles may be screened separately. Chapters: 1. Prelude; 2. Mars Thunderchild Gets a Calling; 3. Kory & Mercedes; 4. The Park Was Thick in Silence; 5. Home; 6. Living With Fire / From The Ashes; 7. Dance of the Canoe Pants; 8. The Red Army is the Strongest.

A whole man contained in half of a body struggles to maintain his daily routine and provide for the child in his care.

A candyland town kicks up its sugary heels for a midday parade.

An homage to Antonin Dvorák, one of the great composers of the late 19th century. Documentary vignettes are interwoven with music and dance tableaux shot among fairylike forests and countryside. These lively scenes stand as a poetic illustration of the composer's music and evoke his passion for trains and boats as well as the Slavic myths and lanscapes that inspired his works. Based on Dvorák's String Quartet no.10 in E Flat Major, opus 51.

At Caledonia Junior High - like at so many schools - students and teachers live in an environment of disrespect and potential danger.

A hybrid of analogue and digital techniques in which chemical transformations of the image are combined with electrical modifications to produce a fantasia of vibrantly coloured alchemical forms that suggest an erotic wonder at all the world’s surfaces.

SEG/ME/NTS is a feature crime anthology consisting of three interconnected shorter films: THE INTRUDER follows the adventures of a cat burglar (Murray Utas) obsessed with breaking into homes - just to watch people sleep. His seemingly innocent voyeuristic addiction soon opens the door for more serious crimes as he becomes deeply involved in the lives of the people he watches. Brodi Roberts and Aaron Talbot star in MUSICAL CHAIRS - the tragedy of six strangers who awake one morning to find themselves poisoned by a man they've never met. Taunting his victims by telephone, the mystery man guides the group to locations containing the antidotes, only to provide some with the cure and others with death. VISIONS tells the tale of a disgraced police detective (Matthew Kloster) afflicted with premonitions of murders before they occur. Only his former partner believes his claims, hoping his dreams will lead her to apprehend a serial killer.

After his boyfriend leaves, a young man is lost in nostalgia and depression, until a mute street kid tries to distract him from his melancholy. A moody and romantic story that pays homage to the film noir of Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai.

A cable guy is called in to repair an old mans TV set.

A merchant finds a well in an abandoned tent in the desert and tries to profit from it.

Recorded entirely on super 8 film, Sleep Always tells the story of a lonely and isolated Canadian jazz musician who forms a friendship with Nada, a strange homeless girl, and his growing obsession with her.

A documentary unlike any other, The Moody Brood explodes the myth of the idealized, normal family-a popular and pervasive post-WWII notion. The film examines issues universal to all families: the effects of community and religion, the influence of siblings, and the moral standards imposed by parents. Award-winning filmmaker Lulu Keating traces the lives of her 10 siblings from their childhood in the 1940s to present day, from a small Catholic community to the world stage. Along the way, she asks some difficult questions: Can we, as adults, shed past experiences? Or do they shape our whole lives?

Kinda like the first one, except everyone agrees that it’s TWICE AS GOOD! Retard-o-Tron 2 will make you power-vomit your intestines across the room as you take in the most insanity-inducing video mixtape you will ever lay eyes on! Brace yourself for 103 minutes of 100% juvenile video mixtape fun!

The history of changes experienced by Inuit people in the last sixty years is contained in the stories of Vivi Kunuk. Abandoned by her father, a White RCMP officer, Vivi Kunuk was adopted by the Inuk family of her mother who raised her as a boy. This is but one remarkable chapter in her life. With her husband Enuki, she raised eight children living most of the year on the land. Surrounded by her grandchildren, she recounts stories about the land she knows intimately and her life's destiny on Baffin Island.

A comedy that revolves around Gaby, a film student who needs guidance on her atrocious film. She and her friends try to contact Orson Welles.

Coming Attractions is a short film consisting of 4 interlinked fake movie trailers, each done in a different style. The first, 'The Restaurateur' is the story of a restaurant owner forced to return to a life of crime. The second, 'V-Squad' follows a quintet of sexy female assassins recruited by a government agency to battle organized crime. The third, 'La Venganza del Diablo Azul' features the luchador El Diablo Azul revived from the dead to seek revenge against those who murdered his family, and the fourth and final trailer, 'V-Squad Part 2' returns to the V-Squad as they face an army of vicious extra-terrestrial mutants.

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?"

In "The Shirt" Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) artist and director Shelley Niro parodies the archetypal tourist tee-shirt from the point of view of First Nations Peoples as an exploration into the lasting effects of European colonialism in North America. Facing the camera directly and poised against the landscape of “America”, an Aboriginal woman with biker-like accessories bears a sequential series of statements on her tee-shirt that together comprise a discourse on colonialism. The darkly ironic and yet brutally truthful messages of "The Shirt" draw attention to the history of invasion that indigenous peoples have experienced in North America.

Has Matthew been wasting his life? He’s 29 years old with 4 memberships at adult video stores, 55 tapes of compiled porn, and absolutely nothing to show for it: no girlfriend, no ambition, only a big stack of porn. Run Run It's Him is the true to life story of what happens when man stays too long in his apartment having sex with himself. It is also a funny, honest and optimistic look at the way porn affects people’s lives in the 21st century.

Surrealistic imagery frames this true Depression-era story about Finnish homesteader Tom Sukanen, institutionalized after a decade spent single-handedly building a steamship on the Canadian prairie.

Part 6 of 7-part bio-feature Public Lighting (2004).

Part 9 of 9-part feature Imitations of Life (2003).

Sister Justine is a nun serving in New York City. She thought she could change the world with love, but on the dark streets of this down and out neighbourhood: Mayhem and the Moctezuma gang rules! She is aggressed and humiliated by Abigail Mingozzi and his boys after refusing to work for the street gang. Sister Justine will apply the laws of the bible in her own personal fashion as the only way to spiritual salvation is through punishment! Tchéky Borowczyk, New York’s most powerful crime lord wants the sister dead while sergeant Detective Berruti and his rookie assistant Tarallo are on the case.

Ponders the possibilities of what awaits us at the end of our life.

A sidewalk record sale takes an emotional turn when a chance musical discovery yields a powerful response.

Candice's dark obsession with her younger sister Ashley will plunge both sisters into a deadly battle of wills and challenge a bond often viewed as unbreakable.

Rome, a palimpsest: monuments, the Catholic church, the everyday life.

Six young adults with trisomy 21 and six specialized education students live together an out-of-the-ordinary experience: hiking to Machu Picchu at more than 2000 meters of altitude and doing a humanitarian project. In this mythical place, each day is a challenge and everybody surpasses their limits. This group invites us to a journey of gift, of tolerance and of open-minding to difference.

A hooded figure confronts three scissor-wielding women.

The third thematic mini documentary about revolutionary filmmaker Norman McLaren.

The life of a family of fishermen, in the inland delta of the Niger river in Mali, is stricken by the effects of globalization: the rise of the price of oil and basic goods, the collapse of fish stocks and the signs of global warming. The film reflects the passage of traditions, a relation to history and memory in a region where persist traces of the origins of things.

"Secret Weapons" is an experimental animated filmic essay that tries to work through the emotional and political confusion that has shaped the way I, and many other young Queer Aboriginal artists, relate to the world. — A.G.J.

An ancient European Legend comes alive with the story of La Befana-a mythical character who rewards the good children...and punishes the bad. The children of the village dismiss the legend as an old wives tale, but as the slaughters continue, their doubts begin to wane. Are the murders the work of a local resident hiding behind the story of La Befana, or does the fable really exist?

The real story behind the oft-ridiculed 'cat lady' - a cultural stereotype and figure of ridicule for women of a certain age with too many furry companions. Through the intimate portrait of four unique 'cat ladies' we create a sensitive and emotionally honest portrait of women whose lives and self-worth have become intractably linked to cats. It's not the number of cats that defines someone as a 'cat lady', but rather their attachment, or non-attachment, to human beings. They create a world with their cats in which they are accepted and in control - a world where they ultimately have value.

Sailor boys are the stuff of dreams in the prairie provinces. Bisch proves that this lack doesn't make them any less desirable. You are not going to wake up from this one without getting a little wet.

A documentary that follows Corey Lucas, a 21-year-old African Canadian, as he tries to reconcile his urge to be a hustler with his need to be a responsible father and a supportive partner. Life in Jellybean Square, a housing project in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, was a world away from the things Corey grew up wanting: a fancy car, a big house, a great job and a bright future. With a head full of dreams and empty pockets he turned to selling drugs on the street. Central to the film is the transformative power of a weekend retreat for young Black males, organized by BROS (Brothers Reaching Out Society) together with the film's director, Russell Wyse. At the heart of the film lies Wyse's conviction that despite all the odds against them young Black men can succeed if they have the will, the opportunity, and the support of a community. -NFB

A glimpse into the private life of the filmmaker as we enter the intimate space of his home. The film presents an obsession with a location as an integral component of personal identity and intimate history on the brink of disruption.

"A video work that stands between conceptual art and documentary. My grandmother tells the story of my father’s death, 25 years ago, while my hands become the lens that holds my mother’s life today." - Juana Awad

George W. Bush's announcement of a war on terrorism becomes the words a couple use to affirm their love.

Women from 18 countries discuss vital fishery issues from the perspective of gender and globalization.

An experimental animation that illustrates a surreal internal landscape occupied by child creatures and animal imagery. A child goes off to school and must reevaluate everything they have known. Fish, dogs, cats & birds interact with fish tanks, living room furniture, poppies, school busses and the first artificial heart technology. They morph and combine with one another, changing masks and creating new creatures in the strangely internalized and claustrophobic environment that they inhabit. Relationships between the objects, animals and sound create a commentary on seeing and invisibility as experienced by the body. The menacing feeling of animalistic predators and prey seeps into every scene, as odd sexual metaphors manifest with alien-like qualities. Everything points against one of the narrative claims that, “Nothing ever happened.”

A “water poem,” set in a Japanese ofuro hot bath. It explores water as a medium and repository for collective stories and was created in a hybrid new media form using animation, video and split screens. This film was made as part of the first edition of the NFB's Hothouse apprenticeship.

Searching for their lost kite among the grey buildings of the inner city, two street urchins stumble onto a hidden world where the four elements of nature coexist in perfect balance. They are terrified by a curious creature that is half vegetable, half animal, but soon realize that this mysterious character is not only good-hearted but also understands the mysteries of the wind. Over the course of this initiatory journey, the little street urchins gain an understanding of nature, and learn to master their fears. A dazzling work of puppet animation, full of delightful twists and brimming with humanity.

Five boys go on a bike trip to the lake. They find an overturned car and save the life of the driver with their knowledge of first aid. Mike, the town bully, finds out that Emmett is really a very good person to know and that he needs to change his outlook on life if he is going to succeed in the future.