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In My Parents' Basement

Three adult children have returned to their parents' home to live. Future dreams, past failures, and the present struggles of daily life are captured in close-up over a nine-month period. Through conversations, anecdotes, arguments, and unpredictable emotional highs and lows, it sheds light on the myriad of issues triggered by adult children moving back in with their parents - a growing phenomenon in today's society. As the documentary unfolds, it becomes painfully clear that being a parent or a child is a lifelong calling that requires patience, compassion, and strength.

In My Parents' Basement

8.0 2002
Skindrums and Tattoos

"This found-footage film is made with a censored 16mm copy of Belles of the South Seas (1944), a typical Castle travel film about the peoples of the South Pacific (I found it as is, with all the naked torsos scratched). The original "voice of god" style sound-track is recut to match the ridicule of the censored images, as well as to expose its own white colonial centricity and superiority. William Castle is introducing the film himself, and he concludes the piece with a reaction of the audience. Some special effects from the frame by frame transfer from film to video, are inserted as an extra reminder of the plasticity of media and their sometimes shady content (then and now)." - Gerda Cammaer

Skindrums and Tattoos

NR 2009
How the Grinch Stole My Heart (and my favourite sweatshirt…)

This short film borrows Dr. Seuss' famous villain, the Grinch, and transforms him from Whoville's mythical Christmas hating goblin into a modern-day ex-girlfriend who breaks Abigail's heart. Crushed by her loss, Abigail falls into a world of lovelorn misery, obsession, internet stalking and self-medicating. But finally, Abigail is struck by a sense of renewed self-worth, and triumphs over her love for the Grinch...or does she?

How the Grinch Stole My Heart (and my favourite sweatshirt…)

NR 2009
(Body) Part One

This is a story of a child who was taken repeatedly to the hospital for various tests, one of which was catheterization. Woven throughout are two other stories - one, a training video for nurses demonstrating the procedure and the other, looking through the child's now adult eyes, as she encounters women who echo reminders of the original event. These various echoes trigger post trauma squeamishness and sexual tension that is strange and complex. Both medical ethics and the labels that limit our view of sexual identity are being questioned here.

(Body) Part One

NR 2003
Nishnawbe Aski Police Service (NAPS): A Sacred Calling

Nishnawbe Aski Police Service (NAPS) is the largest First Nation police force in North America. Police officers in this severely underfunded police force go above and beyond the call of duty when compared to other police officers. NAPS officer duties include, cutting firewood for the wood stove that heats the police detachment and emptying slop buckets with prisoners’ urine and excrement. "A Sacred Calling" shows the deplorable working conditions and the devastating personal consequences to NAPS officers as they heroically provide security and safety to First Nation communities in the remote north of Ontario.

Nishnawbe Aski Police Service (NAPS): A Sacred Calling

NR 2008
Seeking Grace

"In Seeking Grace an elegant older woman (Gina) walks calmly with a flower pot on her head, her physical balance and confidence a metaphor for the grace I seek in my own life. Indeed, this footage was shot because Gina told me I had terrible posture and demonstrated for me her ability to walk straight while balancing a heavy object, something the nuns had forced her to do in school. In Seeking Grace, the idea of grace encompasses but also goes beyond the notion of the body, referring to a deeper ongoing metaphysical quest." - Sara Angelucci

Seeking Grace

NR 2003
Memories of A Generation: The Story of Ali Saeed and Other Ethiopian Political Victims

Imagine you have been imprisoned, subjected to torture, released and forced to leave your homeland as a refugee, imprisoned again, released again, and once more captured and sentenced to death. This was the reality for Ali Saeed, an Ethiopian imprisoned in his homeland and in Somalia for trying to spread freedom of speech and freedom of the mind. Ali and many other Ethiopians with similar experiences were able to escape to countries such as Canada, and they are now ready to speak about the period in Ethiopia's history known as the "Red Terror".

Memories of A Generation: The Story of Ali Saeed and Other Ethiopian Political Victims

NR 2009
Life of Charlie

Charlie, content coasting through life in small town Canada, wastes his days drinking with friends that he has little in common with. He dreams of being a successful musician, but his complete lack of drive prevents any progress. When he meets Sarah, who recently moved to town from the city, she opens his eyes to a world of possibilities. Reluctant to change, Charlie is forced to address the roadblocks in his life as the worlds of his past failures and his newly blossoming relationship collide.

Life of Charlie

NR 2009
Girl on Girl

In his alter ego as Miss Cookie LaWhore, Canadian novelist Michael V. Smith gives up his hetero-virginity to performance artist and sex worker Amber Dawn. Shot on mini-DV, Girl on Girl is a candid documentary that humanizes sex as it battles the social stigma of being sexual. Touching on hot buttons such as the exploitation of women in the mainstream porn industry, shame and body image, sex phobia, and gender ambiguity, Girl on Girl lays bare our shared fear of being sexual and being seen.

Girl on Girl

NR 2004
M

M is a film of assemblage, juxtaposition and manipulation of animated structures. Small architectures appear and overlap. Brief nebulas arise, the most complex structures sometimes recalling constellations and other stellar clusters. This abstract film shows the results of a year of visual and technical researches. Hand-drawn animations were scanned, manipulated and combined. The resulting images were printed on paper and reworked, then put in relation according to their level of complexity and the movements which constitute them.

M

NR 2009
Fingal’s Cave

Filmed in Fingal’s Cave, a dramatic sea cave almost an hour’s journey by sea from the Island of Mull, over the course of seven separate visits. The towering sculpted columnar walls and roof were long held to be man-made, or created by giants, or held up as proof of a divine creator. One myth suggested that the cave was the abode of a nine-headed sea monster, another that the Devil himself were buried beneath the island. The last inhabitants of Staffa, around 1790, left the island after the pot on their stove shook so violently during a storm one night, that they believed “nothing but the devil could have shook it that way.” It can be a wild, moody and inhospitable place.

Fingal’s Cave

NR 2008
Dialogue

From the starting point of the alphabet as a series of abstract symbols, a visual representation of the spoken word, this film explores the acoustic and visual rhythm of type. Working directly onto the surface of 16 mm and 35 mm film stock using letterpress, Poirier utilises an aleatoric approach to animation, generating intuitive compositions governed by elements of chance and surprise. The typographic forms, once translated as a soundtrack, vary from the harmonious to the discordant.

Dialogue

NR 2008
Crapshoot: The Gamble with Our Wastes

A hazardous mix of waste is flushed into the sewer every day. The billions of litres of water - combined with unknown quantities of chemicals, solvents, heavy metals, human waste and food - where does it all go? And what does it do to us? Filmed in Italy, India, Sweden, the United States and Canada, this bold documentary questions our fundamental attitudes to waste. Does our need to dispose of waste take precedence over public safety? What are the alternatives?

Crapshoot: The Gamble with Our Wastes

NR 2003
her carnal longings

“her carnal longings” is an audiovisual meditation on the human body and the film medium at a time when the futures of both are in question. Using the “emulsion lift” technique on 16mm film, sections of emulsion were lifted off, torn up or smudged, and then re-adhered. In combination with digital video technology, Pruska-Oldenhof creates an intricate analogue-digital weave that explores both the body’s and the film’s surface. The film emulsion wrinkles, rips and dissolves - reminding us that it, like human flesh, is fragile and perishable.

her carnal longings

10.0 2003
RIP in Pieces America

Rip in Pieces America is an uncensored proclamation from an invisible USA. Dominic Gagnon turns no blind eye in his ultra-intense collage film which consists entirely of more or less anonymous webcam clips that due to their controversial or explicit nature have been flagged and meanwhile removed from video sites such as YouTube. Well-formulated conspiracy theorists, bad-tempered grass-roots activists and religious arms fanatics, who use the webcam as both a means to preach and to confess, have all been filtered by the censor, but stored by Gagnon, who neither comments nor embarks on any finger-pointing. For who decides what can be thought and said? And what is paranoia, if you know that you’re right? RIP is an uncensored, in-your-face assault on political correctness and on most American institutions. But it also has a bizarre performative element that develop in pure Hollywood fashion.

RIP in Pieces America

NR 2009