Discoveries from Canada World Cinema

When Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it.

A female project manager hires a young male intern, and when he starts staying late to help, they have a one-night stand. Embarrassed by the incident, she apologizes and breaks things off quickly, but the intern isn't ready to let go yet.

Set in a possible future where people have been forced stay in big cities due to the degradation of the natural world. The virtual world has expanded to a level of realism that transcends reality. The most popular activity in the virtual world is a hunting game. A group of people manage to get out of the city to go for a real hunt. Nothing could quite prepare them for what's to come...

A critical investigation into the business of internet pornography.

Follows the triumphs and tragedies of Katrinka Kovár, a young Czechoslovakian ski prodigy who discovers high-society splendor in the arms of a wealthy American businessman. When lust turns to lies, Katrinka - long haunted by a burning secret from her past - sets out to find the love she left behind.

The first production released by the Winnipeg Film Group! A restaurant serves cute little bunny rabbits. Yum-yum! One of the Film Group's greatest ventures, this light comedy features Peter Paul Van Camp as an industrious writer who sits and composes his poem about bunnies while at the very next table, the special entree - rabbit pie - seems to have become more rabbit like.

A documentary directed by Julien Lecat.

Sébastien and Danny are lifelong friends and competitive boxers whose relationship and career is tested when they accidentally hit a bicyclist with their car after a night of excess partying.

A Bosnian Muslim and a Bosnian Serb family have come to Vancouver to find peaceful new lives only to find themselves embroiled in the ethnic conflict they left behind.

A hitman by the name of Mr. Nice Guy is about to be married and his fiancee doesn't know his true profession. On top of that, his future father-in-law has a contract out on him. A zany mafia comedy!

The Flying Sailor is based on the Halifax Explosion of 1917 when two ships collided in the Halifax Harbour causing the largest accidental explosion in history. Among the tragic stories of the disaster is the remarkable account of a sailor who, blown skyward from the deck of a British cargo steamer, flew over 2 km before landing completely unharmed, but naked except for his boots.

A struggling actress and an aspiring playwright pour all of their creative energy into the only paying work they can find: role-playing demonstrations for corporate training seminars. When they book the biggest gig of their careers at a hotel conference, they commence work on their most ambitious production to date.

Darcy, a talented event planner returns to her home town to plan her mother’s wedding. She’s having trouble accepting her stepfather-to-be and quickly Darcy’s obsession with perfection begins to clash with her mother’s wishes for a low-key celebration —especially when it comes to handsome and charming Kyle, the chef Darcy deems inadequate for catering the event. But as complications arise—both personal and professional—it’s Kyle who is able to help her pull off the big day and help her find the love she’s been looking for…

Joey Velour, a left-wing radical in New England, is put through a Kafkaesque trial over the assassination of a right-wing state senator.

A rich young woman is kidnapped and taken to a school of "discipline."

The apparent suicide of a politician he was hired to follow drags private detective Benny Cooperman into a whirlwind of hard boiled double crosses and psychotherapy whose roots lie in a decades-old unsolved murder.

A grief counselor is visited by a very disturbed man.

Four unemployed, uninspired, life loving 20-something guys decide to turn their backs on society and hit the road in the world's slowest little bus, taking things one mile at a time.

Boy on Bridge is a feature length documentary that follows the engaging and energetic Alan Doyle as he collaborates with some of his friends and musical heroes. While the project unfolds Alan balances his career with Great Big Sea, navigates through debilitating back problems, and attempts to find a record label home for his new project. This liberating project has allowed Alan to step outside of the comfort zone of his day band and scratch some names off his musical bucket list. The names include icon Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo, indie legend Hawksley Workman, Robin Hood co-star Scott Grimes, Gordie Sampson, legendary television composer Mike Post, and Alans good friend and longtime musical partner, Russell Crowe.

A teenage posse, known as the Vandits, attempts to pull off a ridiculous heist.

In the late 1960s, a Harvard dropout's decision to take a job in Canada is misinterpreted as a political statement.

Vastly different people collide as a mysterious black box shows the owner what he most desires, but payback comes in the form of an immortal assassin.

A woman wants to clear her father's name. He supposedly murdered a shady night club owner. She starts looking for clues about the real perpetrator, but finds more than she bargained for.

Portrait of Andy Goldsworthy, an artist whose specialty is ephemeral sculptures made from elements of nature.

Fall of 1970, an all-female film crew is about to shoot a soft-porn. Jane, the director, starts having a crush on a new girl. An eroticized power game unfolds between the filmmaker and her actress.

Reggae documentary of the One Love Peace Concert held in Kingston, Jamaica in 1978. In addition to the music, this film features the return to Jamaica of Bob Marley after a 16-month hiatus following an attempt on his life.

Five estranged friends play a seemingly innocent game that spawns into something far more sinister than they ever could have imagined.

As the plane slowly makes its descent, a young couple is faced with their differences through sudden pockets of turbulence.

Brooklyn flies home to surprise her boyfriend on his birthday, but immediately changes her mind upon arrival and decides to hide out for the summer with her friend Faith. Faith lives with Casey and with relationship problems of their own, the couple are happy with the distraction...until Brooklyn begins to assert herself, then all of the characters come face to face with the hard realities of their relationships.

Twenty-one years after Alan Zweig’s groundbreaking first feature documentary Vinyl, Zweig returns to the topic of compulsive record collecting with newfound introspection and a sunnier disposition. Punctuated by his signature mirror-confessionals, Records compiles colourful interviews with vinyl enthusiasts, swirling around the proverbial maxim that music has the power to connect us all.

A child's references to satanic rituals initiate a custody battle between his divorced mother and his grandmother in this fact-based story.

In 1970, Joey and Pete left Nova Scotia to try life in the big city in the Canadian Classic Goin’ Down the Road. Now, some forty years later, Joey has died, and Pete must fulfill his last wish: to take his ashes back to Cape Breton Island, as well as a few other tasks along the way. Armed with a series of letters and an envelope full of money, Pete heads back home. DOWN THE ROAD AGAIN is a touching, comedic and romantic tale of second chances at life and love.

Much of Godin’s purple, declarative dialogue is delivered at a breakneck pace, as though these verbally nimble actors are running lines at auctioneer-speed while simultaneously playing their intentions to the hilt. The film is an exercise in radical compression, its velocity integral to its comic effects, though all the rapid-fire yakking and spastically edited reverse-shot sequences lead to a wordless denouement in which Mésuline searches her pockets for a cigarette in a shot that’s hardly protracted yet still takes up about one-fifth of this taut little film’s runtime. Her pleasure in finally lighting up is fairly adorable.

In 1953, in the Gaspé forest, there are three bodies half eaten by bears. Fearing repercussions on tourism and investment, Prime minister Maurice Duplessis decided to make an example accusing Wilbert Coffin.

A young woman marries a wealthy man she isn't in love with, but finds romance instead with the couples' painter friend.

After many years, a convict who spends his days sketching charcoal art in his prison cell receives a surprise visit from his estranged father, forcing him to contemplate his own existence.

Nothing gets by Simone, even though she's blind. An adorable, incredibly precocious ten-year-old girl, Simone sets herself the task of coping with (and sometimes manipulating) the many offbeat charact... read more ers that surround her- including her broken-hearted father, an aging anarchist beekeeper, a beloved and asthmatic quasi-mother-in-law, a priest in the midst of a crisis of faith, and a biker with a wandering heart, for whom she has unconditional love. And then, of course, there's the village in which she lives, where everyone knows your business and makes it their own. No wonder Simone feels that she lives her life like a reel of film jumping in the sprockets of a projector. Life is strange and complicated enough, and then an aviator falls from the sky, threatening everything Simone loves the most.

Three million years ago, camels roamed through Greenland’s endless forests and our ancestors lived in the trees. It all came to an end with the Ice Ages. What died and what survived, as natural selection shaped the evolutionary tree during this epochal shift from hot to cold? Until now, scientists have known less about the natural world before the Ice Age than they did about the age of dinosaurs, which ended 64 million years ago. A new discovery is set to reveal this lost world, species by species. Led by Danish gene-hunter Eske Willerslev, a team of scientists for the first time in history is sequencing DNA from before the Ice Age. The picture that emerges is of a hot planet, when forests blanketed the Arctic and carbon levels matched those in our atmosphere today. Is this a portrait of our own climate future?

Follows 29-year-old immigrant sex worker Debra, and her self-aware 10-year-old daughter Mona, as they embark on a journey of emancipation. Debra attempts to escape cycles of abuse and poverty while learning to become a more nurturing mother and discovering her own self-worth.

Neurotic and newlywed Barbara finds her husband in bed with his old flame, Ellen. Barbara doesn't get mad — she gets even. Using funds supplied by her wealthy father, the scorned bride turns the couple's love nest into a dungeon of horror.

A young woman is transformed into a vampire by a virus. The vampire doctor who's treating her hires a young scientist to find a cure. He and the girl fall for each other hard, but she, mad from hunger, escapes to wreak havoc on the city

Holy Hell is the over-the-top, outrageous, sexually-deviant, blood-drenched story of Father Augustus Bane: a priest pushed too far who begins praying to a revolver and hunting down the gangsters who killed his parishioners. In the vein of recent alternative horror/comedies like "Machete" and "Hobo with a Shotgun", HOLY HELL is a modern take on 60's and 70's B-Movie and Exploitation film tropes. The goal of this feature length movie is to break through every limit set by film, taste and reasonable societal behavior: all with anarchic glee.

For over 130 years till 1996, more than 100,000 of Canada's First Nations children were legally required to attend government-funded schools run by various Christian faiths. There were 80 of these 'residential schools' across the country. Most children were sent to faraway schools that separated them from their families and traditional land. These children endured brutality, physical hardship, mental degradation, and the complete erasure of their culture. The schools were part of a wider program of assimilation designed to integrate the native population into 'Canadian society.' These schools were established with the express purpose 'To kill the Indian in the child.' Told through their own voices, 'We Were Children' is the shocking true story of two such children: Glen Anaquod and Lyna Hart.

A young dog struggles to learn how to find a job.

A dramatization of the abduction and murder of a Quebec government minister by a cell of The Quebec Liberation Front. In October 1970, one group from the same organization kidnapped James Cross, the British Trade Commissioner in Montreal. A few days later, a second group kidnapped Pierre Laporte, a minister of the Liberal government. The film tells the story of this last terrorist cell which ended in the cold blooded murder of Laporte.

Documentary about the 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec, part of the Seven Years War between Britain and France. Both leaders, Wolfe and Montcalm, died in the battle, which decided control over what would become Canada. Includes re-enactments of the battle and the personalities of the two commanders. For two months Montcalm and Quebec City endured English bombardments. However, in what the documentary describes as an exceptionally well planned operation during the night of September 12th, Wolfe got 4500 men and two cannons up L’Anse-au-Foulon cliffs to the Plains of Abraham. Montcalm, who never commanded an army before being posted to New France, chose to leave the city walls and try to fight a linear battle against a better trained army.

Born in the 1890s to an affluent family, Abigail grows up surrounded by the care and concern of her four devoted grandparents. In her twenties she falls in love with Thomas, a poor piano tutor her overprotective grandparents decide is not good enough for their darling Abigail. They may be ghosts only Abigail can see, but these ancient apparitions can still do some serious damage to her romantic prospects.

Two recently released prisoners learn to live in a sugar shack deep in the forest.

After killing the crooked mayor, a homicidal janitor named Abdullah goes to work for a butcher who has invented a new language for the town's planned futuristic theme park. In the butcher shop is a septic tank where scraps of meat are dumped, which has produced "balonium," a radioactive fuel source sought by space aliens. The aliens revive the mayor, whose body is hanging in the meat locker of the butcher shop, in an attempt to gain access to the balonium.

Right before Christmas, realtor Abigail agrees to help her sister with what she believes will be an easy flip of an inherited home. Things get tricky when the co-beneficiary Bo has a different idea.

A beautiful stripper hires renowned criminals to exact revenge on those who raped her in her motel room.

The Johnsons' scheme of keeping up appearances to fit in with NYC's high society hits a snag when they lie about going on an African safari. Various unwanted characters show up to use their 'empty' apartment forcing them to hide from them,

Filmmaker Larry Weinstein stages a wide range of performances in tribute to the compositions of Kurt Weill.

40, 000 years ago the steppes of Eurasia were home to our closest human relative, the Neanderthals. Recent genetic and archaeological discoveries have proven that they were not the dim-witted cave dwellers we long thought they were. In fact, they were cultured, technologically savvy and more like us than we ever imagined! So why did they disappear? We accompany scientists on an exciting search for an answer to this question and come to a startling conclusion …

"Michael Moore doesn't like documentaries. That's why he doesn't make them." A documentary that looks to distinguish what's fact, fiction, legend, and otherwise as a camera crew trails Michael Moore as he tours with his film, Fahrenheit 9/11.

Tintin is visited in India by a Chinese gentleman who brings him a message. Then, an unseen marksman throws a poisonous dart right into his neck. The only clue Tintin receives from the now mad messenger is that there are problems in Shanghai related to a man named Mitsuhirato.

A journey into the hearts, minds and eyes of Georgia O’Keeffe, Emily Carr and Frida Kahlo - three of the 20th century’s most remarkable artists.

Amaluna invites the audience to a mysterious island governed by Goddesses and guided by the cycles of the moon. Their queen, Prospera, directs her daughter’s coming-of-age ceremony in a rite that honours femininity, renewal, rebirth and balance which marks the passing of these insights and values from one generation to the next. In the wake of a storm caused by Prospera, a group of young men lands on the island, triggering an epic, emotional story of love between Prospera’s daughter and a brave young suitor. But theirs is a love that will be put to the test. The couple must face numerous demanding trials and overcome daunting setbacks before they can achieve mutual trust, faith and harmony.

Paul McCartney and his band performed at Halifax Commons on July 11 2009. One of the highlights of the concert was a performance of the song Mull of Kintyre with the Pipes and drums of the 78th Highlanders. The concert was originally shown on PPV in Canada.

A conversation about guilty pleasures turns into one man's quest to find others on a library waiting list, while simultaneously examining the fate of the famous Hollywood bomb Ishtar (1987).