Eva Anandi Brownstein

It’s a moment time-stamped in our brains. Maybe it was a birthday gift. Or perhaps you saved paycheck after paycheck to finally purchase one. However you met your first bicycle, it was the pedal strokes that came afterward that hooked you onto something intangible. Adventure. Connection. Freedom. From the producers of UnReal and the director of Where The Trail Ends comes Accomplice, an homage to all the crazy adventures and crazier comrades that result from our finest sidekick. On the surface, Accomplice takes you to mind blowing locations across the globe with the world’s top riders. But beyond that, Teton Gravity Research’s latest film celebrates how the bicycle is more than just a mode of transportation - it’s a vehicle for the human spirit.

The documentary is a five country-based sequences featuring stories about conflict, migration and the experience of exile; Tibetan women refugees in Dharamshala, India, Syrian refugee family in Tunisia, evicted indigenous women in the Phlippines; Rohingya women in Haryana and Delhi, and Syrian women refugees in Canada.

From local co-directors Baljit Sangra (Because We Are Girls) and Nilesh Patel, this spirited documentary follows four junior hockey players of South Asian descent throughout the 2021-2022 season as they strive to be drafted into the NHL. Arjun Bawa and Kayden Sadhra-Kang skate in the footsteps of their father Robin Bawa, who made history in 1989 as the first South Asian to play in the NHL. Meanwhile, seasoned defenseman Arvin Atwal seeks to shed the fighter reputation he acquired in the American Hockey League by transferring to Slovakia. And, in an uplifting turn of events, the film traces the journey of Surrey’s own Arshdeep Bains to signing with the Vancouver Canucks.

Cypher follows three Black artists creating safe spaces for the youth of African descent living in a city that’s often viewed as lacking Black history and culture. Organizers and artists come together to breathe life into legacy and build communities that celebrate the fullness of Black life in Vancouver.

Inuit youth speak to what their culture means to them, in this portrait of life in Kugluktuk, Nunavut.