Sally Bochner

Based on a local legend and set in an unknown era, it deals with universal themes of love, possessiveness, family, jealousy and power. Beautifully shot, and acted by Inuit people, it portrays a time when people fought duels by taking turns to punch each other until one was unconscious, made love on the way to the caribou hunt, ate walrus meat and lit their igloos with seal-oil lamps.

A busload of women become stranded in an isolated part of the Canadian countryside. As they await rescue, they reflect on their lives through a mostly ad-libbed script.

At the edge of the Yangtze River, not far from the Three Gorges Dam, young men and women take up employment on a cruise ship, where they confront rising waters and a radically changing China.

In the fall of 2002, it was announced that Benjamin Netanyahu would deliver a speech at Concordia University in Montreal, and reaction from the student body was swift and sudden.

Newfoundlanders share their food, culture, and homes with a group of Tamil refugees found off the coast.

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, is North America's most easterly landfall. For half a millennium, its perfect harbour has provided a safe refuge in the middle of the treacherous North Atlantic. For 300 years of its history it was an actual crime to try and settle--Newfoundland was the private preserve of British fishing merchants. But people stayed, despite the colonial masters, despite the lack of law and order, despite hellish weather and raging seas. And the city grew--lurching through centuries of crisis, disaster, privation. For filmmaker Rosemary House, "This is still a hard rock land, a dirty old town at the back of beyond. And yet the St. John's townie is so proud, you'd swear we lived in Paris." In this documentary, she explores her city with the help of six locals, Mary Walsh, Andy Jones, Anita Best, Brian Hennessey, Ed Riche, Des Walsh, writers and performers all. (Source: National Film Board)

Walker takes us on a personal journey into a world of myth and imagination that he learned from his grandmother. He travels from the Moors of Devon and the Highlands of Scotland to the brooding Celtic landscapes of Ireland and the intimate hills of Cape Breton, in his search of this potent “otherworld” of the imagination.

This documentary focuses on the goose hunt, a ritual of central importance to the Cree people of the James Bay coastal areas. Not only a source of food, the hunt is also used to transfer Cree culture, skills, and ethics to future generations. Filmmaker Paul M. Rickard invites us along with his own family on a fall goose hunt, so that we can share in the experience.

This feature documentary follows three newly arrived people in Canada and their experiences with the Canadian Refugee process. As claims are assessed and paperwork is double checked, we begin to examine exactly who can be considered a refugee.

A riveting account of the tragic adventure of filmmaker Varick Frissell and his filming of "The Viking" (1931) and the tragic events that befell that adventure into early film-making.

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, this documentary sheds light on an era that shaped the identity of generations.

In his crusade for literacy, principal Ray Brown enlisted the help of the community and broke through the cycle of illiteracy in a small Newfoundland fishing village. He turned the struggling elementary school into a place where students were eager to learn and instilled in parents a sense of hope for their children's future.

A Sigh and a Wish tells the story of pioneer folklorist Helen Creighton and of the enduring appeal of her remarkable collections of song and story. Creighton helped define Maritime culture as we know it. Thanks to her, folk songs moved out of the kitchens and the fishing boats and into the mainstream. Top contemporary Maritime musicians - talents like Mary Jane Lamond and Lennie Gallant - describe how deeply they have been influenced by Creighton. For 60 years, Creighton sought out ghost stories, superstitions and tales of buried treasure, as well as songs handed down from generation to generation: fishing songs, work songs, love songs. Timeless songs. A Sigh and a Wish is a moving tribute to the genius of a self-taught folklorist and to the continuing strength of the deep oral traditions she helped preserve. But it also raises important questions. Does Creighton's collection truly reflect Maritime culture, or is it tinged by her own upper-middle-class assumptions?

A tribute to Canadian comedy icon Tommy Sexton (1957-1993). A founding member of the Newfoundland comedy troupe CODCO Tommy died of complications from AIDS on December 13, 1993.

Filmed at the Wing Fong Farm in Ontario, this documentary follows the tilling, planting and harvesting of Asian vegetables destined for Chinese markets and restaurants. On 80 acres of land, Lau King-Fai, her son and a half-dozen migrant Mexican workers care for the plants. For Yeung Kwan, her son, the farm represents personal and financial independence. For his mother, it is an oasis of peace. For the Mexican workers, it provides jobs that help support their children back home.

In this feature-length documentary, 8 Inuit teens with cameras offer a vibrant and contemporary view of life in Canada's North. They also use their newly acquired film skills to confront a broad range of issues, from the widening communication gap between youth and their elders to the loss of their peers to suicide. In Inuktitut with English subtitles.

The life and times of George Johnston, photographer and keeper of memories for the Tlingit nation.

This feature documentary takes us back to April 20, 2001, as Quebec City prepares to host the 3-day Summit of the Americas. A 4-kilometre fence has been erected, cutting off the Upper Town from the rest of the city. Thirty-four heads of state from the Americas will meet behind closed doors to discuss agreements for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Those opposed to the FTAA are mobilizing and gathering in Quebec City, too. Several thousand delegates have come to participate in the People's Summit, and tens of thousands will march in protest. Six thousand police officers fill the streets and it looks as if the historic Quebec capital is under siege. The local population fears the worst. Will the Quebec capital become a battleground? Shot in cinéma vérité style by 7 of Quebec's best documentary filmmakers, View from the Summit vividly portrays what happens when passionate and creative protesters clash with the ideologies of those in power.

This touching documentary follows a cast of blind and visually impaired actors as they prepare Dancing to Beethoven, a play about blindness. The film takes us deep into the lives of the actors. We hear stories of their shock and disbelief at first losing sight and of their struggles coping with a life without it. We hear them talk about grieving and pining for the visual world. They tell the moving story of how this play is itself a victory, a type of salvation, for each of them. By opening night, at the renowned Place des Arts in Montreal, they are a close-knit cast, well-honed and ready to step out of the wings and into the light.

An Untidy Package sets out to dispel the popular misconception that Newfoundland women weren’t major players in the cod fishery before the moratorium, and that the federal compensation they received was only added to their husband’s claims to increase their family’s allowance. We learn at the outset that one third of the 35,000 workers displaced were women. Using the viewpoint of some of these women, this video examines the cod crisis and its social implications for families.