Directing
Veteran independent documentary filmmaker, from war zones to reimagining women's lives everywhere.
A refugee from Somalia tries to rebuild her life in Canada. Then she is kicked out of her house together with her teenage daughters.
A compelling call for justice, Stolen Time follows charismatic elder rights lawyer Melissa Miller as she takes on the corporate for-profit nursing-home industry—an industry notorious for its lack of transparency and accountability. As the legal battle unfolds, families, frontline caregivers and change-makers chronicle an urgent crisis with ramifications—and inspiration—for us all.
"Undying Love" tells the poignant, enduring, and miraculous love stories of the survivors of World War II. Against the brutalized landscape of post-war Europe, this film focuses on how survivors struggled to reconstruct personal identities and forge intimate relationships. Using searing testimonies, poetic dramatizations, archives and images of romantic love from the pre- and post-Holocaust era, Undying Love is a textured retelling of several extraordinary love stories which emerged “out of the ashes.
Acclaimed Montreal band Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra is one of a growing number of rock groups to have accepted an infant into their touring tribe. Touring with children is both costly and complicated, yet SMZ are determined to combine family life and being on the road with the band's deep political commitment.
Between March and October 2000, millions of people around the world took to the streets to denounce poverty and violence against women. The historic World March of Women was a bold initiative of the Québec Federation of Women and represented a turning point in global solidarity. Director Sophie Bissonnette invited five filmmakers from around the world to cover the march. She also asked each one to film an innovative project. Set against the backdrop of a song, 'A Score for Women's Voices' ends at the UN, where women deliver 5 million cards signed during the marches. Their goal? To change the world.
During her lifetime, Dr. Rajani Thiranagama devoted herself to the cause of social equality in Sri Lanka, a country ravaged by war and death. Her own personal letters, along with interview footage of Rajani's older sister and husband, reveal a strong-willed woman who saw individuals as themselves, not as classes or ethnic distinctions. Viewers are informed of her fateful journey, which withstood violent oppression and civil war -- only to end in murder for the crime of speaking her heart.
Combining nostalgia, dazzling architecture, pop culture, economics and politics, MALLS R US examines North America's most popular and profitable suburban destination-the enclosed shopping center-and how for consumers they function as a communal, even ceremonial experience and, for retailers, sites where their idealism, passion and greed merge. The film blends archival footage tracing the history of the shopping mall in America, visits to some of the world's largest and most spectacular malls-in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Poland, France, and Dubai-and interviews with architects, mall developers, sales managers, environmentalists, labor activists and social critics, as well as commentary from mall shoppers themselves.
This film casts a curious and critical eye at North American discourses about motherhood since the 1950s. Through conversations with seven mothers, a selection of archival footage and stills from the 1950s, as well as some home movies, this film offers new ways of thinking about what it means to be a good mom.
A powerful exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Days' War. The film documents the lives and encounters of two young men. About to begin his military service, Tal, an eighteen-year-old Israeli, is torn between conscience and patriotism. Mohammed, a young Palestinian from the West Bank, works as a cook at an Israeli café frequented by Tal. Their discussions gradually reveal two starkly different realities, underlining the complexity of the Middle East situation.
Shot in Palestine, Israel, and Jordan, GRASSROOTS IN DRY LANDS tells the story of three unconventional social workers united by a common vision, one that transcends the antagonisms between their countries. Nuha, from Nablus (Palestine), Talal, from Amman (Jordan), and Amit, from Sderot (Israel) work to empower some of the region's most disenfranchised, war-scarred communities in an effort to build a just and civil society.
