Discoveries from Canada World Cinema

When unlikely neighbors are trapped in an elevator with a coronavirus suspect, fear and racism spread among them faster than the virus.

In this evocative meditation, a disturbing link is made between the resource extraction industries’ exploitation of the land and violence inflicted on Indigenous women and girls. Or, as one young woman testifies, “Just as the land is being used, these women are being used.”

Megan and Victor are teens in love. Victor is a vampire and he is being blamed for a rash of murders in town. It's up to Megan to help to clear Victor's name and to find the vicious killer who is responsible.

Gary and Ell (a married man with an inferiority complex, and a grieving young widow) meet on a blind date only to wind up stealing a killer's car along with a dead body and $40,000.

Playfully competing with Mom's new boyfriend, nine-year-old Josephine learns that letting people in can lead to wonderful things.

Twenty years after walking out on his family and bride on his wedding day, Jacob Hansen returns to the family farm and must accept the changes that happened after his departure.

Jaime’s quest for healing leads her to restore a family heirloom. But what begins as a therapeutic project, soon spirals into a battle against an ancient evil that has plagued her bloodline for generations.

After signing up for a literal elevator pitch, a screenwriter grapples with the conflicting advice from three very different producers.

1977, Elvis is dead and nine year old Christina, grieving the loss of her mother, must spend the summer with her Ukrainian grandmother. Her only consolation is her new best friend, Ruby, who teaches her about the magic in raspberries and how to communicate with the dead.

A man in a hotel room hears an argument next door in a language he doesn't understand. As the argument gets more violent, he must decide whether or not to intervene.

On your marks. Follow cyclists from 13 countries as they cover 2.400 km of Gaspé countryside in 12 days-a course longer than those of Italy, Belgium or Spain. The long shots of curving landscape and open road are set to a mesmerizing soundtrack in this documentary, and the results are spellbinding.

A first look at Strobus / Banksiana: a musical and visual work supported by two important protagonists of the Quebec forest: the white pine and the jack pine. Duu's second album, first double album : each half is distinguished by its sonic palette, its writing style, and the type of conifer that surrounds it. This short documentary offers an intimate glimpse into the creator's journey through the paths that led him to conceive this personal diptych, where he embraces his duality in this visceral desire to celebrate nature every day.

An intertwining story of coincidence and closure. Now, then and before the "death" of his YouTube partner and best friend, Seamus tries to come to terms with his new predicament and create a final video for the channel, a sendoff to the last five years of friendship.

In the early 1930s, Orson Welles ascends to unprecedented stardom while President Franklin Delano Roosevelt navigates a nation in crisis. As WWII begins, an American boy visits abroad, and an American soldier enlists in the army.

Somewhere in Montreal, Antoine toils as a struggling writer. The end of his relationship with Matina causes him to work obsessively on his new novel, making it difficult for him to interact with the opposite sex. One day while moping over Matina, Antoine is hit by a car driven by Charlotte, a married mother of two and the manager of a hip boutique. Despite their differences, an attraction quickly develops between Charlotte and Antoine, and they soon add Elisabeth, a brainy and beautiful teenage prostitute, to their sticky couplings. Meanwhile, Charlotte's husband Joey sits at home and watches dispassionately as his wife abandons him and their kids for epic nights of passion.

"5 Sides of a Coin" is a comprehensive overview of the worldwide cultural movement of Hip-Hop.

A documentary about Nain, a Labrador Inuit community located near the world's largest nickel and copper deposits. As commercial mining interests prepare to exploit the resources, local residents consider the potential environmental and cultural impact. Meanwhile longstanding Aboriginal land claims are unsettled.

After graduating college, two girls go on a road trip with their brother's 1979 camper van. Through this journey, they uncover their love for one another that they've been hiding from, which runs parallel to their brother's secret relationship.

Karen attempts to grapple with the fleeting nature of romance through filmmaking, only to run into conflict with her surrounding cast and crew. You can try to make art imitate life, but it doesn't necessarily make life any easier.

Two teenage boys try to summon a demonic entity while live streaming on TikTok in an attempt to go viral.

Rufus Wainwright's original opera finds Emperor Hadrian devastated after his lover Antinous drowns in the Nile River. While matters of state encroach on his grief, and advisors clamour for war against a radical new threat to the Empire, Hadrian slips out of time to re-encounter the vision and reality of Antinous—and learn the truth about what happened on the Nile.

A medical examiner conducting autopsies on victims of a terrible car crash, imagines how they may have lived their lives.

A boy’s wish brings his favourite comic book character to life. A killer astronaut that comes to Earth to kill.

On the eve of the publication of a biography of Claude Jutra, one of the most famous and celebrated filmmakers in Quebec and Canada, a leak leaked to the press reveals that the book contains anonymous allegations of pedophile acts committed by the filmmaker. The rumor spread like lightning, suddenly igniting the entirety of Quebec society. By finding today some of the main witnesses propelled overnight into the heart of an unparalleled media tornado, the documentary reconstructs with archive images and other previously unpublished images, the sequence of events which led to a rewriting of the story.

A dinner goes horribly wrong.

This feature documentary uses animation, archival stills and live-action footage to detail the history of women's participation in the largely male-dominated world of baseball and softball. Zany and affectionate, it features 7-year-olds learning the rules and skills of the game and 50-year-olds hitting home runs, from the early days of the Bloomer Girls to the heyday of the Colorado Silver Bullets.

Casey's mother ensures her daughter receives the education, protection, and loving care little girls need. But an altercation with some local schoolgirls reveals that Casey's life is based on a lie.

In small-town British Columbia, Canada, awkward teen Mike Drinkwater has trouble fitting in and is bullied by his antagonist and rival: wealthy school jock, Luke Ryan. While Mike's offbeat father, Hank, spends more time defrauding the government than being a role model; Hank is dealing with his own longstanding condemnation by Luke's father Wesley Ryan, which seems to fuel Luke's hostility towards Mike. Enter Wallace, a young girl from the United States who is adjusting to life in a new place while recovering from her own personal tragedy. Wallace's strength of character helps transform her life and the lives of the people around her.

An impromptu passenger on Benito's routine door-to-door sales trip up north forces him to take his nose out of his insurance folder and take in the view.

This made-for-TV bio-pic is about Marilyn Bell, a Canadian teenager who, in 1954, was the first person to swim across Lake Ontario. She won the Toronto Canadian National Exhibition prize after Florence Chadwick, a then-famous American swimmer who was widely expected to win, dropped out in the middle of the race. Half of this heart-warming movie is devoted to the 21 hour swim in which the 16-year old Bell is exhorted by her pushy coach Gus Ryder not to give up.

The whole town becomes alarmed when our three teenage heroes, Bobby, Jack and Kate sight a mysterious black galleon sailing into the harbour with a lone bearded figure at the helm. Stories of enemy warships disguised as sailing ships fuel the mounting paranoia. Together the three young people befriend the 'Raider' and become involved in a plot to expose a local smuggling ring - a plan which leads them to be imprisoned in the galleon and at the mercy of the smugglers. A story full of suspense, intrigue and romance to delight the whole family. Based on novel by Franklin W. Dixon

A disabled man yearns for intimacy in a world that would rather ignore him.

During a tense family Christmas party, Luci, a queer Peruvian-Canadian woman with a massive chip on her shoulder, slips away to give her beloved nephew the gift of his dreams: a beautiful sequinned dress.

A lonely hairdresser watches the title sequence of "That Cold Day in the Park" then visits a local park to invite a down-and-out skinhead to his apartment. He draws the silent man a bath and talks to him as he soaks. He locks his guest in a bedroom. Next day, the skinhead leaves through the window and visits his sister, who's making a film called "Sisters of the SLA." He helps with a screen-test. The hairdresser has dreams and fantasies involving the skinhead, the skinhead returns to visit him, and then the filmmaker pays a call on the two men, exposing her brother as faking his silence and pretending a lack of sexual interest. Fantasies can come true.

In this short comedy, two Canadian Muslim brothers are sleeping in their home when the barbecue in the backyard blows up. They are immediately suspected of being dangerous Middle Eastern terrorists and their neighbourhood turns against them. This film was inspired by events following the Oklahoma City bombing.

Thomas, a European, has come to Québec for some recreational fishing on his own. He then embarks on the road leading to the north of Canada, chasing after a black truck that killed the son of a young Amerindian woman. This Swiss cop in exile wants justice to be done. He has, however, other reasons for wanting to do the right thing.

Mildred Moyer is at it again, unleashing her unique brand of vengeance on a corrupt religious organization that took advantage of her and others.

Long-time friends Yan, Simon, Roxanne, Maxime and his sister Lily are in their early 20s, the age when anything is possible. They are just embarking on their careers. Then one fine summer day, Yan is involved in a fatal car accident. The young man is killed instantly and the rest of the gang is thrown into turmoil.

Homer's Odyssey meets King of Kong as two über geeks try to collect all 678 officially licensed Nintendo Entertainment System game cartridges in 30 days, WITHOUT the aid of online purchasing.

A money launderer finds himself in a bind on Christmas Eve when a case of mistaken identity leads to him spending the evening with an unpredictable runaway instead of his family.

Three soldiers of fortune get together for one last job. However, one of them falls for a drug-addicted hooker, and when her crazed pimp gets involved, complications ensue.

A veteran actor in a slump comes face to face with the idea that his dream is dead when the video of a micro-aggression steeped in industry politics goes viral.

Faced with the trials and obstacles of life, the tight-knit community of Ste-Adeline has always remained united. But this time it's in shock and will have to face a situation that will confront the inhabitants with their contradictions. At the center of the scandal, Magalie, a teenager with a childish pout, Manuel, the adopted child of the village's emblematic mayor, and Isabelle and Chantale, protective mothers but powerless witnesses to a predicted tragedy. In Ste-Adeline, appearances are deceptive and the layers of a carefully maintained social veneer end up cracking, revealing the true nature of the inhabitants of this peaceful little town.

During a training exercise in an abandoned open-pit mine, a crew of Canadian astronauts are interrupted by an Atikamekw elder, who asks them to deliver an important message to the spirit of his community on the moon.

Alone in an aging cosmos, a traveller's pilgrimage comes to an end.

We are engulfed in a digital tsunami—a toxic mix of artificial intelligence, state and corporate surveillance, and social media addiction controlled by powerful algorithms. Digital Tsunami shows how these are all elements of a digital ecosystem that is changing us as humans—just as the prophetic media guru Marshall McLuhan predicted 60 years ago. The unexpected consequences of this digital revolution have created an urgent need for strategies for survival.

This is the story of The Adventure of Faustus Bidgood, a surreal comedy about a lowly bureaucrat and his fantasies of becoming president of an independent Newfoundland, that was released in 1986. A cult classic in Canadian cinema, the film is well known for the marathon it took to even get made. Principal photography on the film began eight years earlier, in 1978. Written and directed by comedy legend Andy Jones and his brother, Mike Jones, the movie was made on a shoestring budget, is packed with familiar faces and helped pave the way for Newfoundland and Labrador's vibrant film industry. And it was the first film ever both filmed and produced, from start to finish, in Newfoundland.

A deep dive into the history of the Canadian Government and the Department of National Defence leasing First Nations reserves as practice bombing ranges during World War I and World War II. This documentary follows the Enoch Cree Nation's process of developing it's land claim against the Canadian Government following the discovery of active landmines in the heart of the nation's cultural lands and golf course in 2014, almost 70 years later.

During the holidays, Denis finds himself spending Christmas dinner with his lover Carl's family. Fiercely Catholic and stubbornly traditional, Carl's family are completely unaware of their son's relationship with Denis. However, a psychological cat and mouse duel takes place between Denis and Ruby, the six-year-old spoiled rotten niece of Carl.

The start of a new school year brings unexpected challenges for siblings Miles and Haley Miller as they navigate dramatic changes in their lives. Their newly separated mother Noelle works tirelessly to provide for her family while adjusting to their new reality. In an effort to bond with her brother, Haley coaches Miles through his romantic pursuits, only for him to face public humiliation. As sibling tensions rise, Noelle begins to notice troubling changes in her son – anger, isolation, and hostility toward her, Haley and friends at school. After yet another crushing rejection, Miles spirals into the toxic world of incels–a dark and shadowy online underworld that fuels his growing resentment. As he slips further into darkness, Noelle and Haley race against time to save him, desperate to reach him before he’s consumed completely.

Jewish people have waited for the arrival of the Messiah for thousands of years. Join Berel Solomon on an action-packed new movie called Finding Mashiach. An adventure to the land of Israel and beyond to find the Moshiach. Amid the war in Israel and Gaza, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and the Presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, global unrest has made the world appear darker than ever. Some might think we're heading toward Armageddon, rapture, the end of days, apocalypse, the Day of Judgment, or the resurrection of the dead. What is really going on? How does Judaism differ from Christianity, Islam, and other major religions on the subject of the Messiah? The whole world seems to be shaking, and all the major Jewish rabbis and theologians agree: the time is now. There is only one thing that can save us. Join this journey to enhance your spirituality, based completely on the Torah, the Talmud, Kabbalah, and authentic Hebrew Bible sources.

When things go from bad to worse for Melonie Sunshine, she finds herself returning to the family farm and business when her Aunt Tiley passes away. She must find a way to work with her new business partner, Nick Rainbow, and maybe find what true love and hard work really is.

1978. In a small village in Bas-St-Laurent, Guy’s tragic death is a shock for the Leblanc family. For many years, the real cause of his death is kept hidden from some members of the family, including his son David. The latter in turn starts his own family with his wife Marie. He lovingly raises his children Laurence and Frédéric, but deep within him harbours a persistent melancholy.

Grappling with the complexities of mental health and trauma in a digital age that feels isolating and overwhelming, a young person embarks on a surreal journey of self-discovery, navigating the raw truths of adolescence in an attempt to find a place in the world.

This feature documentary offers a complete record of the 1939 Royal Tour of Canada by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The film opens as the royal couple makes a stop in Québec city, where Premier Duplessis greets them. They then visit Montréal and meet mayor Camilien Houde. A visit to Ottawa brings them to Parliament, where Prime Minister MacKenzie King is present. The visit continues throughout Ontario, the prairies, and western Canada. The Royal couple also makes a brief stop in Washington and meets President Franklin Roosevelt. They then stop in on the Maritime provinces before boarding a Royal yacht for the journey back to England.

In this Oscar-nominated animated short film, director Peter Foldès depicts one man’s descent into greed and gluttony. Rapidly dissolving and ever-evolving images create a contrast between abundance and want. One of the first films to use computer animation, this satire serves as a cautionary tale against self-indulgence in a world still plagued by hunger and poverty.

A professional thief turns state's evidence on his Mafia boss and enters into the witness protection program.

The thoughts and memories of four African-Canadian women affected by gun violence are woven together in a tapestry of images.