Discoveries from Canada World Cinema

One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now. What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy?

Norm, an aimless writer, witnesses the murder of rock video star Madelaine X and feels guilty, as he did nothing to prevent it. At Madelaine’s funeral, he meets a mysterious woman in black with unexplained connections to the deceased singer.

Identical twin brothers Lou and Eric plan to compete together in the National Rowing Championships. But when Eric leaves their small town to attend an Ivy League University, the brother's bond is torn apart.

This documentary traces the deep-rooted stereotypes which have fueled anti-black prejudice.

As the Christmas holidays begin, a group of 10 war-obsessed kids have a wave of inspiration: What if they spend the next two weeks engaged in a simulated war, armed only with shields, wooden swords, snowballs, and a fierce sense of competition? With a bounty chest waiting for the winners, the two sides gradually grow in size, and the war grows in importance, taking over all aspects of their lives.

As MITZI BEARCLAW turns 25 years-old, she is faced with a tragic decision – stay in the big city to pursue her dream of designing hats or leave her boyfriend and return home to her isolated reserve to help care for her sick mother. Loyal to her family, Mitzi reluctantly returns to Owl Island to find that not much has changed. Her confidence and modern style clash with the sleepy, slow-paced island; the bullies are the same; the handsome HONEYBOY is still running the water taxi; and ANNABELLE, Mitzi’s mother is still as bitter and unloving as ever. She’s also reunited with her spiritual friends, FAITH, HOPE, and CHARITY who guide her as she navigates a year of anger, loss and love. Mitzi is soon surprised to find comfort in being home and starts to question her destiny.

A Documentary crew entered an asylum to shoot a documentary on the place on Halloween night 2004. Several mysterious things occurred throughout the night leading up to a missing crew member the following morning.

On a misty morning in the fall of 1985, a small group of Haida people blockaded a muddy dirt road on Lyell Island, demanding the government work with Indigenous people to find a way to protect the land and the future. In a riveting new feature documentary drawn from more than a hundred hours of archival footage and audio, award-winning director Christopher Auchter (Now Is the Time) recreates the critical moment when the Haida Nation’s resolute act of vision and conscience changed the world.

This animated short is a play on motion set against a background of multi-hued sky. Spheres of translucent pearl float weightlessly in the unlimited panorama of the sky, grouping, regrouping or colliding like the stylized burst of some atomic chain reaction. The dance is set to the musical cadences of Bach, played by pianist Glenn Gould.

On her 35th birthday, Lexi discovers that she will suddenly have to give up her normal life in New York and become who she always secretly was… a royal Princess. She has two weeks to come to terms with this, reveal her true identity to her best friend, and find a suitable date for the royal gala, where she will be introduced to the world. All under the watchful eye of her handsome but infuriating bodyguard, Noah.

Three teenage boys idealize and fantasize about an older teenage football player until they witness his death.

Nonbinary Max and their straight, cisgender boyfriend Jake face a major identity crisis after Max reveals they are finally off the waitlist for top surgery.

When 9-year-old Megan dedicates her Christmas wish to helping her mom Cara find love, she enlists the help of their blended family to make it come true. But when the letter goes viral, will Cara realize that what she was looking for was on her doorstop the whole time?

A man's relationship with a bipolar woman becomes dangerous.

After her parents separate, preteen Margot sets out to reunite her family. One day, she comes home from school to discover, to her shock, that a stranger has moved in and appears to have bewitched her father.

Michael Ironside headlines the cast as Jack, a Denver cop investigating the case of a murdered army sergeant. Things heat up when we learn that the death may be linked to a massive weapons trading scandal and, even worse, when Jack's friend Jennifer is kidnapped. The bad guys better beware now things are personal.

Unemployed and broke, Owen is having a terrible week. It's not until he saves a wealthy Japanese businessman from a couple of thugs that Owen's luck begins to change. He's promised an easy job with very good pay. $500 a night. 5 nights a week. All Owen has to do is wear a uniform, sit in a chair and make sure that an ominous door is never opened. Following an unexpected late night visit, Owen soon finds himself stepping into the darkness, unsure if he will survive the night or escape the fate that waits for him behind The Door.

Following a rare accident, Paul Sneijder opened his eyes to the reality of his life as a "senior manager" in Montreal: his work no longer interested him, his wife annoyed him and deceived him, his two sons despised him ... How can we continue to live under these conditions? Starting with a change of profession: dog walker for example! Will his relatives accept this change that will turn him into a free man?

Living alone in darkness, Kaspar has experienced little oflife until he’s discovered by a man in black and brought outinto the world. Animator Diane Obomsawin’s affecting fableis based on the tale of the nineteenth century’s most famous wild child.

Arthur, D.W., and their family and friends prepare to make the best Christmas ever in Elwood City - but obstacles get in their way.

The photographer and family man Matyas is married and has a happy life with his beloved wife Claire, who is pregnant and near the delivery, and his young son Pierre. Matyas was raised in an orphanage, and he believes his mother died when he was six. However, he receives a correspondence and discovers that his mother has just passed away and that he has a twin brother, Thomas. Matyas does not recall his childhood with his mother and brother and has problems with blood. When Thomas visits his family, Matyas becomes paranoid, believing that his sibling wishes to takeover his family.

On a first date, you always come armed. That's what Jack and Sara discover when they decide to be deadly honest with each other to see if it's really meant to be.

A freshman on campus discovers that the only way to be admitted into the sorority of her dreams is to seduce a nerdy introverted guy and film it. When the sorority "prank" goes viral, the boy is discovered dead from apparent suicide, but his sister does not buy it. She goes under cover to expose the sororities' hidden secrets.

Penguins Behind Bars is an Adult Swim special, adapted from the graphic novel of the same name by Janet Perlman, that aired only once on July 20th 2003. The Short follows Doris Fairfeather, a female penguin who is framed for robbery by her boyfriend and sent to an all-girl prison.

The human side of town planning, as exemplified in Baltimore, Maryland. The Coldspring Project concerned a proposed housing development for lower and upper income levels on a three hundred-acre site adjoining a wildlife sanctuary. The film records the differences aired in meetings of various interest groups that tried to modify the plan according to their views, and the compromise reached, based on plans drawn up by Montréal architect Moshe Safdie.

A teenage girl sets off on an odyssey from her Illinois farming community with her free-spirited but frail grandfather to thwart her uncle's plans to put him in a home for the aged.

An actor returns to give a one-man show at the location of his inaugural performance.

A hedonistic soccer mom embarks on a strange journey of self-discovery, seeking to reconnect with her estranged son by returning his pet rock back to the island of Menorca, Spain.

Three robbers hide a stolen jewel inside a stuffed animal at one of the midway games in an amusement park. When Jack—a teen with a part-time summer job in the park—his best friend David and two girls hang out at the park, they get mixed up in the robbers' scheme to take back their jewel.

Bruce is a repairman tormented by a crippling sense of responsibility for his disabled wife Samantha, an ex-policewoman. Bruce’s increasing hypersensitivity to the injustice suffered by his wife steers him down a dark path of vigilantism. His disintegrating mental health, paranoia and overwhelming sense of doom causes Bruce to channel his rage towards a young woman.

Set in the 1920s, this film tells the poignant and inspiring story of Sam MacKenzie, a boy whose explorer dad disappeared on an expedition to the Arctic tundra. Unable to make friends, adjust to his new Canadian home or get along with his stepfather, Sam finds solace in Kayla, a wild dog he hopes to enter in a dogsled race. But when the community turns against Kayla, Sam must come to her rescue.

Louis is "repo man" who is no stranger to strong-arm tactics in his work, but he has dreamed of becoming an actor since he was a child. When his cousin helps him get an audition, Louis gets the help of a famous actor to secretly help rehearse his scenes. He doesn't even tell his girlfriend Suzie. But Suzie also has a secret; she's pregnant and doesn't want her child to grow up in an atmosphere of violence.

As Noah and Wade prepare to marry in Martha's Vineyard, the personal problems of their friends - and the unexpected arrival of rapper Baby Gat - threatens to permanently end their relationship.

In 1950, in a small village called Northern Station, Samuel, a young mailman and his girlfriend, Évelyne, spend hours replying to letters that children have sent to Santa Claus. While delivering the letters on Christmas Eve, Samuel dies of cold in the forest. He finds himself in the magic land of Santa Claus, where he becomes an elf in charge of answering Santa’s mail. Fifty years later, Samuel opens a letter from Satia, a young girl from Northern Station who asks Santa Claus if he will save her grandmother, who is seriously ill. With the help of his friend, Howie, the young elf decides to go to the village for grant the child’s wish. However, it turns out that Satia’s grandmother is none other than Évelyne.

Lindsay and Spencer are a typical young couple, but their lives are changed forever after a violent home invasion. Now Lindsay finds herself a prisoner in her own home as her husband tortures the men responsible.

An arborist helps a fourth generation Christmas tree farmer whose evergreens are dying just before the holiday. As she tries to get to the root of the problem before the town tree lighting, they begin to fall in love.

Catherine is a teenager going through adolescence just as her parents are getting a divorce. Her social life is no better as bullies and boys add to the pressure of growing up in the chaotic '90s.

Five days in the life of fabled Greenwich Village guitar store Carmine Street Guitars.

Five strangers awake, finding themselves with no memory in a world resembling the wild west. Their task is to become exempt from being killed - what the townspeople refer to as being "immortal" - by killing twenty of the other inhabitants of the town under the scrutiny of the sheriff (Jack Palance), otherwise they will spend their lives in slavery.

Ramirez trains the young Quentin Macleod (The Highlander) and prepares him for his future and current battles against the sinister immortals in the world. (First four episodes of the animated show edited into a feature length movie.)

When holiday fanatic Addie makes a Christmas wish for her next door neighbor Sam to fall in love with her, she’s not expecting anything to happen – and she definitely isn’t expecting the wish to go awry and cause her other neighbor, Pete to fall in love instead. When Pete’s romantic gestures grow more and more over-the-top, Addie recruits Sam to help. With Sam’s assistance, can Addie break the spell by Christmas? Or will she spend the rest of her life dealing with a lovelorn Pete?

After being kicked off a jury for arriving five minutes late, a troubled woman becomes obsessed with the verdict, which sent a woman her age to prison for life. As she fights to have the case reopened, her bond with the prisoner forces her to confront questions of guilt, justice and responsibility.

Three friends become estranged following a disastrous holiday talent show performance and, a decade later, are sent back in time to relive their senior year of high school thanks to Santa’s magic spell.

Lou and Esther are the best of friends. They do absolutely everything together, speak their own language through inside jokes and code words, and share a dreamy curiosity about what their lives would be like had they grown up with a sister. When Lou’s father unexpectedly passes away, she discovers that she has a very real, and very chic, long-lost half-sister, Priya. As Lou begins to explore her relationship with Priya, her and Esther’s codependent bliss is rudely interrupted, creating a rift between them. As the rift threatens to grow beyond repair, Lou must learn to redefine what family is, or risk losing Esther for good.

A week before Christmas, Dr. Alicia Wright is offered an assignment away from home. A mysterious man from her past journeys to find her before Christmas and brings with him a revelation that could change Alicia’s life forever.

After breaking up with her longtime boyfriend and losing her job, Jane reluctantly heads home to the small town she grew up in. But on her way there, she stops to help a stranger in need who ends up helping her believe in herself— and love— again.After breaking up with her longtime boyfriend and losing her job, Jane reluctantly heads home to the small town she grew up in. But on her way there, she stops to help a stranger in need who ends up helping her believe in herself— and love— again.

A cross-section of Toronto's Italian population comes together at a party in Little Italy.

As the Compliance and Outreach Manager for The Animal Discovery Institute, a non-profit animal rights organization headquartered in San Diego, Tilly Monterey finally gets a chance to lead the charge on the company's next project: an Australian penguin sanctuary in dire need of some financial assistance.

A WW1 soldier has to watch over another soldier whom he falsely accused of desertion and whom will executed at dawn for cowardice.

The Swap is the third chapter of the PolEc Trilogy, comprising Wandering Marxwards (1998) and The Three Failures (2006). It features the same character as in the previous episodes, but now reduced to a lost, exhausted soul roaming Shanghai's cityscape from the remotest periphery to the financial district. Another narrative, spoken this one, takes us to September 2008, as gigantic bailouts put the financial system on life support instead of letting it collapse, thus seizing our reality and replacing it with a fiction tailored for the situation. These two streams end up meeting on a Shanghai dancefloor, where unresolved contradictions can finally be performed.

A dark yet spiritual drama that follows the journey of a man who's been abandoned in the frozen north for thirty years after his death.

A couple in a failing marriage begin to cheat on each other using the power of the internet.

In search of their next hit series, filmmakers Adam Rodness & Stu Stone embark on an investigation to find a man they believe to be a serial killer. Are they in over their heads? Yes.

Set off the West Coast of Canada in 1965, a hip new teacher with a miniskirt and lots of ideas turns a small town upside down. The soft autumn light of Galiano Island is beautifully rendered in writer/producer Peggy Thompson's The Lotus Eaters, and that's not the only elusive element that this film has captured. In revisiting its particular time and place - the Gulf Islands of the early '60s -Thompson obviously draws on her own family experiences there. For those who share Thompson's love of Gulf Islands magic, the elements she has assembled will feel as familiar as their own childhood blanket. But there are problems at the core of this story about a family's loss of innocence.

1977 adaptation of Conan Doyle's The Adventure of Silver Blaze

Harper, a teacher and aspiring illustrator, eager for her big break, is tapped to collaborate with Caleb, a demanding children’s book author whose celebrity is waning. When he insists on her working through Christmas week in a quaint small town in Colorado, she must use the town’s holiday celebrations to help break him out of his writer’s block.

An ailing writer executes his dying wish: to reconcile his wildly personal take on his lifelong war with his action-movie star brother. A raucously surreal tragi-comedy.

A detective investigates her father's dying words; the name of a girl who has been missing for 9 years.

Married to a brutal cartel boss, a woman seeks freedom with a smuggler's help. But the northbound journey unveils his disturbing reality, thrusting her into a surreal odyssey.

In a barren post-apocalyptic future, the seven sexy Goddesses of Merkabatron descend upon a wretched Earth to convey the message that the Vibration of Love can heal all. A campy, erotic, science fiction comedy, this cinematic love child of Barbarella and Ed Wood Jr. will soon have your Titillator vibrating on a cosmic level.