Kelly Davis

Feisty, fiercely independent and firmly rooted in place, 90 year-old Mabel Robinson broke barriers back in the 40s when she became the first woman in Hubbards, Nova Scotia, to launch her own business—a hairdressing salon where she still provides shampoo-n-sets over 70 years later. Weaving animation and archival imagery with intimate and laugh out loud moments in the salon, the film celebrates the power of friendship, doing what you love and staying active. With no desire to retire anytime soon, Mabel gives voice to a generation who are not front and center of cinema or the pop hairstyles of the day, and subtly shifts the lens on our perception of beauty and the elderly.

In her feature documentary Seguridad, Newfoundland-based filmmaker Tamara Segura—once named “Cuba’s youngest soldier” in a militia publicity stunt—portrays her troubled relationship with her father in the context of the Cuban Revolution. When Segura accepts a scholarship to study film in Canada, the move offers crucial distance from her alcoholic father. After four years, she returns to Cuba hoping to make amends. But her father’s sudden death just days after her arrival forces Segura to explore his troubled past and the role Cuba’s highly militarized system played in his downfall. Through a series of deeply personal on-camera interviews with her immediate family, Segura unearths long-held secrets that ultimately tell a story of resilience and profound love between family members. Seguridad artfully weaves a lifetime’s worth of still photographs into its intimate narrative, which offers a rare glimpse into the inner lives of Cubans in the post-revolutionary era.

This short experimental documentary about memory and music follows a young Cuban couple charting a new course for their lives on an island in the North Atlantic.

Adopted Montreal filmmaker Adrian Wills discovers, on camera and in real time, the startling truths of his complex beginnings in Newfoundland. Shocking details drive Wills to the core of his birth mother’s resilience, and ultimately his own. In this moving feature documentary that combines 16mm footage and contemporary images with deeply personal conversations, Wills’ voyage transforms from an urgent search for identity into a quest to give a quiet girl her voice.

In a coastal town in Newfoundland a man named Skip cares for his widowed grandfather, admires the local store clerk from afar and dreams of making something of his life through an unlikely endeavor: rock skipping.

When 74-year-old Robert Tilley agreed to take photographer Ting Ting Chen on a road trip across Newfoundland, neither could have predicted the deep, cross-generational friendship that would blossom between them, nor how Robert's role in Ting Ting's art would challenge traditional ideas of the artist-muse relationship. This touching short film explores the concepts of aging, memory and identity while demonstrating the power of creative connection.

When Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it.

In the coldest waters surrounding Newfoundland's rugged Fogo Island, "people of the fish"—traditional fishers—catch cod live by hand, one at a time, by hook and line. After a 20-year moratorium on North Atlantic cod, the stocks are returning. These fishers are leading a revolution in sustainability, taking their premium product directly to the commercial market for the first time. Travel with them from the early morning hours, spend time on the ocean, and witness the intricacies of a 500-year-old tradition that's making a comeback.

After being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a young mother writes a letter to her daughter about their family’s collective journey to acceptance.

Nestled in her home by the ocean, Ash is creating wedding dresses for herself and the woman she’s about to marry. With every stitch, Ash moves closer to the life she envisions, but a premonition thrusts her into a world of mystery and loss.

Deanne Foley profiles fellow Newfoundlander Mary Walsh, the Great Warrior Queen of Canadian comedy, musing on time wasted as an object of desire and time well spent as the fearless agent of her own destiny. A joyous call to action.

IDFA and Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick had a close relationship for decades. He was a hard worker and often far from home, visiting festivals around the world. In 2013, he died after a short illness. His daughter Mira was left behind with a whole lot of questions, and a box full of videotapes that Wintonick shot for his Utopia project. She resolved to investigate what sort of film he envisaged, and to complete it for him.

In the stark Labrador interior, a growing number of Filipino workers have recently landed in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, travelling halfway around the world for jobs they hope will offer their families new opportunities and a better life. Becoming Labrador follows a handful of them as they make a place for themselves in Labrador while dealing with the unexpected costs of living far from their family.

In August 2018, a 23-year-old Black father was shot and killed by Montreal police while grappling with a mental crisis. Through a poetic blend of music, dance and spoken word, his family’s desire for justice is brought to life.

A chance meeting of an art activist and a pompous Sunday painter at a public statue of Winston Churchill turns into a public event of insults in this political satire.

Global pandemics are like prairie thunderstorms. Full of terror and havoc, they eventually pass. Bringing a new baby into the world can also feel like a storm.

Part oral history and part visual poem, Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher is the story of Evelyn Campbell, a trailblazer for an Inuit-led educational system in the small community of Rigolet, Labrador.

An unusual request forces Delph the barber to come to terms with possible loss.

Young Leia is abandoned by her mother when they receive an unsettling visit from Mister, Mom's old friend and current employer.