Acting
Heritage Minutes, also known officially as Historica Minutes: History by the Minute, are a series of sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history. They appear frequently on Canadian television and in cinemas before movies and are now also sold on DVD. The Minutes were first introduced on March 31, 1991 as part of a one-off heavily-promoted history quiz show hosted by Rex Murphy. The thirteen original short films were broken up and run between shows on CBC Television and CTV Network. The continued broadcast of the Minutes and the production of new ones was pioneered by Charles Bronfman's CRB Foundation, Canada Post Power Broadcasting, and the National Film Board. They were devised, developed and largely narrated by noted Canadian broadcaster Patrick Watson, while the producer of the series was Robert Guy Scully. In 2009 Historica merged with The Dominion Institute to become The Historica-Dominion Institute. While the foundations have not paid networks to air Minutes, they have made them freely available, and in the early years paid to have them run in cinemas across the country. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has ruled that Heritage Minutes are an "on-going dramatic series" thus each minute counts as ninety-seconds of a station's Canadian content requirements.
In a small Arctic town struggling with the highest suicide rate in North America, a group of Inuit students' lives are transformed when they are introduced to the sport of lacrosse.
When a suicidal Inuk teen accidentally pierces an oil pipeline with a bullet, the FBI launches a full-scale manhunt across the northern wilderness.
A long-simmering animosity between two families of Verona, the Montague's and the Capulet's, has recently boiled over, with members of the rival households brawling in the streets. One night, Romeo, a Montague, crashes a party given by the Capulet's in order to meet up with a young woman called Rosaline, with whom he is infatuated. Thoughts of her vanish from his mind, however, when he catches sight of Juliet, daughter of the head of the Capulet household. Juliet is equally smitten with Romeo, but her father already has other plans for her.
Travelling to the Arctic for the first time, Carmen arrives in Iqaluit to tend to her husband, Gilles, a construction worker who has been seriously injured. Trying to get to the bottom of what happened, she strikes up a friendship with Noah, Gilles' Inuk friend, and realizes they share a similar story. Together, Carmen and Noah head out on the Frobisher Bay - she, looking for answers to her questions; he, trying to stop his son from committing what can't be undone.
In a small town in the Canadian Arctic, Ippik, a young Inuit woman, suffers in an abusive relationship. She starts to heal when she connects with other victims of violence and finds her voice.
In 1952, an Inuit hunter named Tivii with tuberculosis leaves his northern home and family to go recuperate at a sanatorium in Quebec City. Uprooted, far from his loved ones, unable to speak French and faced with a completely alien world, he becomes despondent. When he refuses to eat and expresses a wish to die, his nurse, Carole, comes to the realization that Tivii's illness is not the most serious threat to his well-being. She arranges to have a young orphan, Kaki, transferred to the institution. The boy is also sick, but has experience with both worlds and speaks both languages. By sharing his culture with Kaki and opening it up to others, Tivii rediscovers his pride and energy. Ultimately he also rediscovers hope through a plan to adopt Kaki, bring him home and make him part of his family
A founding member of Cape Dorset’s famed printmaking co-op, Kenojuak Ashevak introduced Inuit art to the world.
