It is late autumn and the Eskimos travel through soft snow and build karmaks, shelters with snow walls and a roof of skins, in the river valley. The geese are gone but some musk-ox are seen. The man makes a toy sleigh from the jawbones of a caribou and hitches it to a puppy. Next day the women gather stocks of moss for the lamp and the fire. The men fish through the ice with spears. The woman cooks fish while the men cache the surplus. Then the family eats in the karmak. The men build an igloo and the household goods are moved in. They begin the complicated task of making a sleigh, using the skins from the tent, frozen fish, caribou antlers and sealskin thong. The woman works at a parka, using more caribou skin, and the children play. Now the sled is ready to load and soon the family is heading downriver to the coast.
11-year old Julia and Martin are tired of having to flip back and forth between their divorced parents and when they realize how much they look like, they realize to swap places. After meeting at an airport, the each embark on a journey that will change their lives forever.
Freddy, a Viennese Jew who emigrated to New York after Hitler's invasion, and Adler, a left-wing intellectual originally from Berlin, return to Austria in 1944 as soldiers in the U.S. Army. Freddy falls in love with the daughter of a Nazi, and Adler attempts to go over to the Communist Zone. But with the advent of the Cold War and continuing anti-semitism, the idealism of both characters is shattered as they find themselves surrounded by cynicism, opportunism, and universal self-deception.
The Return is a 2016 documentary directed by Emmy Award winning director Erich Joiner chronicling Ford GT's return to 24 Hours of Le Mans after their 1966 1-2-3 victory.
Owen, a young man is dissatisfied with his life. He heads into the forest to escape and learns a lot during his time there.
A girl is at school. Suddenly it's as if she can't breathe. As she runs down the stairs we follow her into her mind. It takes us deep into dark woods.
Top Nazi officials, intent on rooting out traitors and those in the military who may be plotting to overthrow Adolf Hitler, recruit and train a group of beautiful prostitutes whose mission is to use any means necessary to uncover plots against the Fuhrer.
Priest Don Camillo blackmails his friendly rival Peppone into letting him join a Communist delegation visiting the Soviet Union.
In a world where communication has grown into big business, the lack of it between individuals is almost a paradox. We live in tight little compartments that are not easily penetrated. Individual differences are regarded with suspicion or scorn. This animated film parodies the human condition in a few quick, colourful sketches, amusingly, without words, yet leaving food for thought.
A young woman was buried alive with the intention of killing, but she survived by chance. hears the cries of her little girl and fights to stay alive for her daughter. But this incident will enlighten a new worldview for her.
This documentary follows three women — a fire chief, a judge, and a street missionary — as they battle West Virginia's devastating opioid epidemic.
When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob's delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home.
A bored, retired rock star sets out to find his father's tormentor, an ex-Nazi war criminal who is a refugee in the U.S.
The lives of the residents of a small French town are changed when thousands of the recently dead inexplicably come back to life and try to integrate themselves into society that has changed for them.
The "Jackpot Island - Kumanthong Returns" continues to spread obsession and doubts about one of Southeast Asia's most terrifying divinities. Who is really hiding behind the evil, monstrous face and holding terrifying secrets? What does a deadly island and the terrifyingly mysterious appearance of monstrous mermaids have to do with this brutal and terrifying spell?
"Loro", in two parts, is a period movie that chronicles, as a fiction story, events likely happened in Italy (or even made up) between 2006 and 2010. "Loro" wants to suggest in portraits and glimps, through a composite constellation of characters, a moment in history, now definitively ended, which can be described in a very summary picture of the events as amoral, decadent but extraordinarily alive. Additionally, "Loro" wishes to tell the story of some Italians, fresh and ancient people at the same time: souls from a modern imaginary Purgatory who, moved by heterogeneous intents like ambition, admiration, affection, curiosity, personal interests, establish to try and orbit around the walking Paradise that is the man named Silvio Berlusconi.
A look at the making of the film Troll 2 (1990) and its journey from being crowned the "worst film of all time" to a cherished cult classic.
Return is a methodical construction of the approach of an individual towards an unseen goal, which assumes metaphorical significance. Viola moves toward the camera/viewer, pausing every few steps to ring a bell, at which point he is momentarily thrust back to his starting place, and then advanced again. Finally reaching his destination, he is taken through all of the previous stages in a single instant and returned to the source of his journey.
One day in the lives of an average Greenlandic family, which happens to be of great importance for 8-year old Kali - he's about to catch his first prey with the harpoon. The whole family is looking forward for the huge step in boy's maturation.
The director goes back to her roots in Pangnirtung, amongst her family and community. It leads her to another journey: to Qipisa, the outpost camp from where they were uprooted.
As the global pandemic reaches into the Arctic Archipelago, Inuk filmmaker Carol Kunnuk documents how unfamiliar new protocols affect her family and community. Her vividly specific soundtrack juxtaposes snippets from local radio broadcasts, issuing health advisories in both Inuktitut and English, with the sweet sounds of children at play. A richly detailed and tender account of disruption and adjustment.
It is taking decades for Canada to come to terms with its history in the Arctic, and with its relationship to all its indigenous people. “Kikkik” is the story of government mistakes and neglect, of starvation, murder, freezing death, but, in the end, a kind of justice that helps restore our faith in human decency. In 1958, the Inuit woman Kikkik was charged with murder and criminal negligence leading to the death of her child. Her trial and our visit back to the place and to Kikkik’s children confront us with a legacy that’s still a challenge for Canada.
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 rarely seen lives of an Arctic tribe who try to continue to honor their way of life 80 miles above the Arctic Circle on a fragile barrier island disappearing due to climate change.
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.
The time is early autumn. The woman wakes and dresses the boy. He practices with his sling while she spreads a caribou skin to dry. The boy picks berries and then the men come in their kayak with another caribou. This is skinned, and soon night falls. In the morning, one man leaves with his bow while the other makes a fishing mannick, a bait of caribou meat. The woman works at the skins, this time cleaning sinews and hanging them to dry. The man repairs his arrows and then sets a snare for a gull. The child stones the snared gull and then plays hunter, using some antlers for a target. His father makes him a spinning top. Two men arrive at the camp and the four build from stones a long row of manlike figures, inukshult, down toward the water. They wait for caribou and then chase them toward the stone figures and so into the water where other men in kayaks spear them. The dead animals are floated ashore and skinned.
Two Eskimo families travel across the wide sea ice. Before night falls they build small igloos and we see the construction in detail. The next day a polar bear is seen basking in the warming sun. A woman lights her seal oil lamp, carefully forming the wick from moss. The man repairs his snow goggles. Another man arrives dragging a polar bear skin. The boy has made a bear-shaped figure from snow and practices throwing his spear. Then he tries his bow. Now, with her teeth, the woman crimps the sole of a sealskin boot she is making. The men are hunting seal through the sea-ice in the bleak windy weather. The wind disturbs the "tell-tales," made of eider down or a hair loop on a bone, that signal when a seal rises to breathe. A hunter strikes, kills and drags his catch up and away. At the igloo the woman scrapes at a polar bear skin and a man repairs a sled. In the warming weather the igloo is topped with furs and a snow shelter is built to hide the sled from the sun.
In late winter when the cold is severe, the people and dogs are glad to stop their trek and make camp. In the blue dusk the men probe the snow and then cut building blocks while the women shovel a site. Soon all are under cover, and in the wavering light of the stone lamp they sleep, their breath rising coldly. In the light of day the men test and refurbish their spears, harness dogs to the sled and strike out on the sea ice. Each man, with a dog or two, explores the white waste, seeking scent of a seal's breathing hole. When a dog noses the snow, the man probes for the hole and, when he finds it, suspends a single looped hair to signal when the seal rises to breathe. Then he waits, motionless, to make his strike. He kills, and the others gather to taste the warm liver of his catch. Then, as night comes, the vigil goes on.
Now it is July - summer. The run-off is in full spate and open water shows offshore. Ice cakes melt on the shingle. On the bay are ducks. It is time to build a kayak, a task shared by two men. They gather materials: valuable scraps of wood, bone, seal skins and sinews. Now there is much cutting, fitting, joining and binding. The woman helps by cutting additional thongs, scraping skins, providing food. She must also amuse the child who seems left out by the single-minded work of the men. Then the work breaks and a man harpoons a fish in a tide pool; all share the pleasure of fresh food.
Full summer, and the tundra is bare; skin tents are up and it is time to attend to the fishing as the fish move upstream. The men are in the river, lifting stones and placing them to form enclosures to trap the fish. A woman skins a duck and then braids her hair in the old way, stiffly around sticks. From a bladder she makes a balloon for the child. The men are fishing with the three-pronged leisters, spearing the fish and stringing them on a thong, until it is as much as a man can do to drag his catch from the water. The woman works quickly, cleaning the fish, and then all enjoy bits of the fresh raw fish.
More signs of winter's end as more wildlife returns. The family makes an excursion for fresh fish from a lake. They build a karmak and move in the furs, cooking troughs, etc. The woman sets up her lamp, spreads the furs and attends to the children. There are signs of returning wildlife. The man moves out on the lake ice and chips a hole for fishing. He baits his hook and lowers it jigging the line to attract the fish. Crouched by the hole, he persists with his purpose and takes some fish, as does his wife who has joined him. Both remain at the hole through a severe blizzard. Please note that this is an archival film that makes use of the word “Eskimo,” an outdated and offensive term. While the origin of the word is a matter of some contention, it is no longer used in Canada. This film is therefore a time capsule of a bygone era, presented in its original version. The NFB apologizes for the offence caused.
This classic short film shows how to make an igloo using only snow and a knife. Two Inuit men in Canada’s Far North choose the site, cut and place snow blocks and create an entrance--a shelter completed in one-and-a-half hours. The commentary explains that the interior warmth and the wind outside cement the snow blocks firmly together. As the short winter day darkens, the two builders move their caribou sleeping robes and extra skins indoors, confident of spending a snug night in the midst of the Arctic cold!
This documentary closely follows a group of people living in the Bering Strait and delves into the fundamental aspects of their daily lives, their survival, and the contrast between their traditions and the modern world. With extraordinary imagery, Bering portrays exceptionally well a community fighting to preserve its culture in this mythical part of the world.
Every winter for decades, the Northwest Territories, in the Canadian Far North, changes its face. While the landscape is covered with snow and lakes of a thick layer of ice, blocking land transport, ice roads are converted to frozen expanses as far as the eye can see.
Director Elisapie Issac's documentary is a sort-of letter to her deceased grandfather addressing the question of Inuit culture in the modern world.
In the mid-1950s, lured by false promises of a better life, Inuit families were displaced by the Canadian government and left to their own devices in the Far North. In this icy desert realm, Martha Flaherty and her family lived through one of Canadian history’s most sombre and little-known episodes.
Zacharias Kunuk tackles the subject of the High Arctic Relocation from an Inuit point of view in the documentary Exile. In 1953, Inuit families were forcibly relocated to the uninhabited and inhospitable high arctic, 1500 kilometres north of their traditional homeland of Nunavik, in northern Québec. The goal of the move was to extend Canadian claims of sovereignty to Ellesmere Island. As a result, Inuit people were forced to endure the pain of families torn apart and many years of hardship. With devastating first-person accounts of survival, the trail of broken promises and shameful practices of the government and the RCMP, this powerful documentary captures the long-standing effects of these events from the perspectives of the people who were forced to endure them.