Online cinema
Black Life: Untold Stories – Migrations S1E4
Nadia Louis-Desmarchais
Black Life: Untold Stories is an eight-part documentary series that reframes the rich and complex histories of Black experiences in Canada, dispelling commonly accepted myths and celebrating the many, and often unrecognized, contributions of Black Canadians who helped to shape the country. Spanning more than 400 years fraught with violence, racism, perseverance, and triumph, the series unveils a nuanced and unvarnished view of the lives of Black Canadians. The horrors of slavery and segregation are explored alongside illustrations of resistance, as well as the wonders and rewards of community, creativity, and resilience. Black Life: Untold Stories employs intimate verité, expert testimonies, evocative recreations, rarely seen archival materials, and visually inspired storytelling to contextualize histories of Black Canadians for contemporary audiences, enabling an appreciation of the complexities of Canada’s past. S1E4 – Migrations: Black migrants share intimate and personal stories of trying to create a home in Canada. Told through a series of powerful cinematic verité, vignettes, expert analysis, and engrossing archival footage, Migrations paints an intimate and poignant portrait of Black migration to Canada. This episode examines the arrival of…
The Relay: Revisiting History
Kimberley Ann Surin
Absolutely Canadian is a national one-hour series showcasing documentaries and performance programs that tell unique stories from communities across Canada. All programs are produced locally. S21E32 – The Relay – Revisiting History: On August 3rd, 1996, 4 Canadian sprinters made Canadian history by bringing home the Olympic gold in the 4×100 relay event in front of 85,000 Atlanta spectators.
Les perdants
Jenny Cartwright
A Losing Game follows three people who ran for office in Quebec’s October 2022 provincial election. The one thing they had in common? They were all sure to lose. Through their individual campaigns, the film peels back the curtain on our electoral system and the many ways in which it is dysfunctional: the additional barriers faced by women and radicalized people, deficiencies in the voting process, unfair campaign financing rules and the undue weight given to media and polls. In this documentary, Jenny Cartwright casts a critical eye on a political system that doesn’t offer everyone the same opportunities. For most, the race is over before it even begins. But, thanks to the way the electoral system is set up, the big losers are the rest of us.
Tous Toqués!
Manon Briand
In a remote village somewhere on the border between Quebec and the United States, the unyielding customs officer Sonia confiscates the contents of the car belonging to Victor, a French chef living in New York and in need of recognition. She soon regrets it when her daughter, Lili-Beth, decides to take part in a Petits Chefs competition, in which she seems to have little chance of winning. The intractable Sonia then decides to try everything in her power to enlist the help of the charming but exasperating Victor. This more-than-improbable encounter will bring the whole village together to get past their differences and get a taste of what’s essential.
Jour de chasse
Annick Blanc
Nina, a young woman with an unpredictable temperament, is taken in by a band of hunters at a remote cabin. In the midst of this scathing yet endearing male micro-society, she finally feels part of a pack. This fragile balance is upset when a mysterious stranger joins the group. At once raw and dreamlike, Hunting Day offers a singular universe that interweaves mystery, tension, dark humor and a touch of horror.
La couleur de tes lèvres
Annick Blanc
In an atmosphere grown suddenly impossible to breathe, a diver and a woman appear to be the only survivors. As their reserves of air run out, will they make love or war?
Là d’où l’on vient (Me el Ain – ماء العين)
Meryam Joobeur
Aicha lives in the isolated north of Tunisia with her husband and youngest son. The family lives in anguish after the departure of the eldest sons Mehdi and Amine to the violent embrace of war. When Mehdi unexpectedly returns home with a mysterious pregnant wife, a darkness emerges, threatening to consume the entire village. Aicha is caught between her maternal love and her search for the truth.
Cohabiter
Halima Elkhatabi
In a series of captivating encounters, several young people try to find the ideal roommate, that rare gem with whom they can share their space, and their values. A complex and engaging picture of a generation accustomed to playing all their identity cards, Living Together maps a mosaic of cultures and ideas, with explorations of community, individualism and the right to housing in constant interplay.
Nina
Halima Elkhatabi
At 16 years old, Nina is helpless with regards to her 4-month-old baby Jessie’s incessant crying. Without any escape from the cries and from this new presence is her life, she ventures out from her tiny apartment in a working-class neighbourhood of Montréal for a brief escapade.
Les filles c’est pas pareil
Hélène Girard
In this documentary, six teenage girls aged 14 to 16 agree to open up, to have their intimate world invaded by the camera. They are confronted with problems they intend to take on “all the way”: early experience of sexuality, belonging to a gang, relations with parents, social tolerance, friendship… They live tenderly and purely in their own way.
Souris, tu m’inquiètes
Aimée Danis
Family happiness often hinges on an unsuspected tragedy: the loss of identity of a woman who now lives only in relation to her husband and children. Faced with this “nameless malaise”, Francine, a seemingly fulfilled young woman, is forced to leave her family for a while, in an attempt to find out who she is. The film, which consists of a dramatized part to which witness sequences add the density of lived experience, sheds light on everyday existence as seen by Quebec women.
Une nef… Et ses sorcières
Hélène Roy
Une nef et ses sorcières: monologue de l’ouvrière et monologue de luce, comédienne. For a year, thirteen authors and actresses worked together to stage La nef des sorcières (The Witches’ Nave), performed at the Théâtre du Nouveau-Monde in 1976. In addition to excerpts from these six monologues on the situations and contradictions experienced by the women, the video features comments from the participants in this adventure.
Demain, la cinquantaine
Hélène Roy
Michèle is experiencing the emotions and upheavals inherent in the changes taking place within her during menopause. With a fresh, inward-looking perspective, she tries to come to terms with this little-known period in a woman’s life. Through her experiences as a working mother-wife “in the process of retraining”, she aspires to take charge of her own well-being. Her appropriation of the present is a guarantee for the next 30 years…
Maud Lewis: A World Without Shadows
Diane Beaudry
Set against a background of her paintings and the Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, landscapes they depict, this short documentary is a portrait of the life and work of one of Canada’s foremost primitive painters, Maud Lewis. Emerging from her youth crippled with arthritis, Lewis escaped into her painting at the age of 30. She had never seen a work of art and had never attended an art class but her paintings captured the simple strength, beauty and happiness of the world she saw – a world without shadows.
The Unbroken Line
Diane Beaudry
This is a historical survey of the office of the Canadian governor general, from its inception through the inauguration of Edward Schreyer to office. Drawing from archival photos and using live-action film footage, The Unbroken Line gives us a look at some of the governors general (and their families) who have contributed to the Canadian political system.
Laila
Diane Beaudry
Laila Paattinen is a working woman. Tired of low-paying jobs, she completed a five-month course in dry-wall installation. Because she had chosen a non-traditional job for women, she ran into resistance in the marketplace. She finally solved her problems by opening her own dry-wall application business. A useful film for women seeking non-traditional jobs.
Histoire à suivre…
Diane Beaudry
This feature-length documentary reflects on the journey of women in politics. Since women were granted the right to vote and stand for election in 1940, only around forty of them at most have managed to take their seats in the National Assembly in Quebec City. Filmed during the campaign for the presidency of the Parti québécois in the fall of 1985, Histoire à suivre… (History to be followed…) features interviews with several of these women politicians, including Pauline Marois, Louise Harel and Lise Payette.
Sur le dos de la Grande-Baleine
Diane Beaudry
Documentary on the debates surrounding the La Grande Rivière hydroelectric complex, twenty years after the signing of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. While some celebrate the successes of Quebec engineering, others cry apocalypse and genocide. A highly publicized struggle for control of the Radissonie.
À qui appartient ce gage?
Clorinda Warny
Marthe Blackburn
À qui appartient ce gage? (Who owns this pledge?) is a cry for help for women and their children in the context of the much-discussed issue of state-run daycare. Unequivocally, women are saying they can’t take it anymore, and are calling for shared parenting. Parents from three different Montreal communities with popular daycare facilities contributed their stories to this film: working-class, underprivileged and young protesters.
Beans
Tracey Deer
Twelve-year-old Beans is on the edge: torn between innocent childhood and reckless adolescence; forced to grow up fast and become the tough Mohawk warrior she needs to be during the Oka Crisis, the turbulent Indigenous uprising that tore Quebec and Canada apart for 78 tense days in the summer of 1990.
Mohawk Girls
Tracey Deer
The award-winning hit dramatic comedy series follows four young women figuring out how to be Mohawk in the 21st century. And, of course, trying to find love. But in a small world where you or your friends have dated everyone on the rez, or the hot new guy turns out to be your cousin, it ain’t that simple. Torn between family pressure, tradition, obligation and the intoxicating freedom of the “outside world,” this fabulous foursome is on a mission to find happiness… And to find themselves.
Ma cité évincée
Priscillia Piccoli
Laurence Turcotte-Fraser
Montreal, Canada. One of North America’s last remaining affordable cities is now in the midst of an unprecedented housing crisis. As a result, the face of homelessness is visibly changing. “Renovictions” are on the rise while demand in homeless day centres explodes. In the Plateau Mont-Royal – a neighbourhood synonymous with gentrification – a 90-unit building named Manoir Lafontaine becomes the symbol of renoviction resistance in Quebec. An intimate portrait of a socio-political crisis, this multilayered film explores the human impact of real estate speculation on the cities of tomorrow.
Levanjil dlo a (L’évangile de l’eau)
Priscillia Piccoli
Documentary on the importance of a river that feeds a Haitian community in Haiti.