Thursday shot from filmmaker Galen Johnson's high-rise apartment during COVID-19 “lockdown” in Winnipeg, captures people going about their daily routines in the city's eerily empty streets, yards and parking lots, on their balconies and on the riverbanks. The extreme distance and the diminutive scale of humans is paired with sound close-ups—a combination that embodies the strange, heightened intensity of feeling of the time, knowing an era-defining tragedy is happening yet being so physically removed.
25 Jan 2019
For detained immigrants who can’t pay their bond, for-profit companies like Libre by Nexus offer a path to reunite with their families. But for many, the reality is much more complicated. “Libre” sheds light on one of many hidden costs of reunification for immigrant families.
15 Oct 2019
Denise, Hannah and Leticia are three ordinary women with extraordinary stories to tell. As transgender people, they talk about the challenges of finding their true identities within an intolerant and prejudiced society.
01 Apr 2008
The making of the hoax film Miracles of Evolution.
28 Feb 2014
Lost Heroes is the story of Canada's forgotten comic book superheroes and their legendary creators. A ninety-minute journey to recover a forgotten part of Canada's pop culture and a national treasure few have ever heard about. This is the tale of a small country striving to create its own heroes, but finding itself constantly out muscled by better-funded and better-marketed superheroes from the media empire next door.
08 Sep 2023
Kindness, creativity, inclusivity, and a touch of magic makes the world a brighter place. Explore the story and impact of Canadian entertainer Ernie Coombs and his iconic series, Mr. Dressup, which enriched the lives of five generations.
05 Mar 2020
Rated X, a short documentary about the adult industry, focuses on giving a voice to the porn actresses working within it. In a perspective of showing how these women empower themselves with their job, Rated X shows the porn industry like never before.
25 Feb 2019
In rural Kosovo, identical houses are built for family members working abroad, in the hope that they will one day return to settle in their old homeland.
05 Mar 2002
Actor/cult icon Bruce Campbell examines the world of fan conventions and what makes a fan into a fanatic.
01 Apr 1954
Corral is a 1954 National Film Board of Canada documentary by Colin Low, partly shot in the Cochrane Ranch in what is now Cochrane, Alberta. In the film, a cowboy rounds up wild horses, lassoing one of the high-spirited animals in the corral, then going on a ride across the Rocky Mountain Foothills of Alberta.
24 Jun 2016
Everyone has heard about bee declines, but with so much attention focused on domesticated honeybees, someone has to speak up for the 4,000 species of native bees in North America. Natural history photographer Clay Bolt is on a multi-year quest to tell the stories of our native bees, and one elusive species – the Rusty-patched Bumble Bee – has become his white whale. Traveling from state to state in search of the Rusty-patched, he meets the scientists and conservationists working tirelessly to preserve it. Clay’s journey finally brings him to Wisconsin, where he comes face to face with his quarry and discovers an answer to the question that has been nagging him: why save a species?
03 Jan 1951
Robert Altman's first film was this 26-minute short, which has a football coach explaining how to play the sport. This is basically an educational short where the viewer learns about the various rules of the sport as the narrator explains them while we see reenactments.
03 Sep 2015
In 2008, a young man broke into his ex-girlfriend's apartment, holding her and her friend hostage at gunpoint for five days. The so-called "crime of passion" was covered live and rabidly followed like a perverse telenovela. This film's pointed analysis of the Brazilian police and media's sensationalization of violence against women sadly explains the country's elevated rate of femicide.
01 Jan 1967
Exploring the art of Armenian portraitist Hakob Hovnatanyan, Parajanov revives the culture of Tbilisi of the 19th century.
23 Jun 1990
A look at what it's like to be gay and black in America.
11 Jun 1922
This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.
22 Mar 1895
Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.
09 Oct 2002
This is not a film about gun control. It is a film about the fearful heart and soul of the United States, and the 280 million Americans lucky enough to have the right to a constitutionally protected Uzi. From a look at the Columbine High School security camera tapes to the home of Oscar-winning NRA President Charlton Heston, from a young man who makes homemade napalm with The Anarchist's Cookbook to the murder of a six-year-old girl by another six-year-old. Bowling for Columbine is a journey through the US, through our past, hoping to discover why our pursuit of happiness is so riddled with violence.
03 Nov 2014
A young trans man tells his story on a early morning journey to Coney Island.
01 Jan 1985
This film recreates the true story of Tom Sukanen, an eccentric Finnish immigrant who homesteaded in Saskatchewan in the 1920s and 1930s. Sukanen spent ten years building and moving overland a huge iron ship that was to carry him back to his native Finland. The ship never reached water.
25 Aug 1945
This FitzPatrick Traveltalk short visits Guatemala City, touching upon its sights, customs, and history.