Guy Pehrsson is summoned by his grandfather to return to the farming community of his childhood. He arrives from the City to find that his mother has finally left his alcoholic and abusive father and now lives among the Indians, Guy's childhood friends and neighbours. He also discovers friction...
Using archival documents, fictions, current accounts, and excerpts from a theatrical creation, Paul Tana paints a nuanced portrait of the Italians of Montreal. From the first waves of immigration at the beginning of the century to the men and women taken to a prisoner of war camps during World War...
Nobody ever listens to Jacob, so he always has to repeat himself. A trip to the grocery store leads to a misunderstanding and Jacob falls asleep hiding in a park. When he wakes up, he discovers that he is in trouble for insulting the store clerk. He is sent to a prison for children that is located...
Filmmaker Karen Cho travels from Montreal to Vancouver to uncover stories from the last survivors of the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act, a set of laws imposed to single out the Chinese as unwanted immigrants to Canada from 1885 to 1947. Through a combination of history, poetry and raw emotion,...
Set in 1815, this is the dramatic story of a child of the fur trade, son of a Native mother and a Scottish-Canadian fur trader. John Mackenzie's father is a wintering partner of the Montréal-based North West Company, which was for decades the wealthiest merchant enterprise in North America. To...
Monet's glorious summer of painting ends abruptly with harsh attacks from his father and art critics. He intends to abandon everything, but is convinced otherwise by aspiring young artist Daniel. Having been abandoned by his own father, Daniel refuses to let Monet do the same to his son. As Monet...
This documentary short is a portrait of violinist, composer and dreamer Maurice Zbriger, who shared his music with Montrealers for over half a century. He hired musicians and singers and conducted them in free concerts financed with income from his ownership of Schwartz's, the famous smoked meat...
This film is about the francization of Québec that has taken place since the Parti Québécois won power from the Liberals in 1976. It shows how the once powerful anglophone community is now questioning its very survival. It discusses some of the motivating forces behind Québécois nationalism....
As part of a geography course, students learn to do topographical surveys. A stroll at the Champlain lookout, in the Outaouais region, will allow them to familiarize themselves with the different methods in use from Samuel de Champlain to the present day. Finally, a visit to the Directorate of...
A dramatization that illustrates the situation of a young couple, particularly of the young woman, faced with an unwanted pregnancy and desiring an abortion forbidden by law. The film portrays her dilemma from the time the pregnancy is confirmed by her doctor to the harrowing moments in a back room...
A BAFTA award nominated animation based on a poem by Earle Birney and a painting by El Greco. The theme concerns the responsibility of the innovator for the thing he makes. In the film, a carpenter builds a cross but is reluctant to become involved in the right or wrong of situations that bring men...
Canada Vignettes: Hudden and Dudden and Donald O'Neary
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There's a "silver lining in every cloud" as Donald O'Neary turns every misfortune his two neighbours can engineer into gold coins. Against the background of the Irish countryside, the customary "rich but dumb" characters meet their match in the "poor but crafty" hero. The story introduces the...
Using splashy hand-drawn animation, the story about a man who ends up in the hospital and probability theory is illustrated. When the guy awakens in a hospital bed, the doctor begins spouting all sorts of statistical probabilities--at which point the patient seems confused. So, the doctor explains...
