Over Beautiful British Columbia: An Aerial Adventure(2002)

Static(en)

Static was filmed from a helicopter circling around the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour. It was shot shortly after the monument was fully re-opened following the September 11th attacks. Flying alongside the statue, the camera presents us with startling close-up views of its oxidised copper surface. The continual sense of movement is disorienting, undermining its sense of permanence and stability.

Bowling for Columbine(en)

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.

Declutter(en)

One Saturday morning, filmmaker Madison Thomas has a revelation: she’s just like her mother. As she thinks about a friend going through tough times, she feels the sudden urge to clean. Through the scrubbing and wiping and rinsing, Madison's thoughts drift to her mother — and her obsessive need to tidy. Madison’s mother survived a traumatic childhood: her own mother never reconciled what she went through at residential school. Cleaning offers moments of control that she didn’t have as a child. She’s fought hard, against all odds, to become a strong woman. They say trauma is in the genes, that it’s passed from one generation to the next. But strength is inherited too. Through rituals as simple as spending time together and smudging, Madison and her mother are beginning to mend the cycle of pain in their family. Declutter is an intimate look into a private moment between mother and daughter and the strength that carries them both.

Nowhere Land(en)

Documentary about filmmaker Bonnie Ammaaq's memories of life on Baffin Island, where her family moved for eleven years during her childhood from the hamlet of Igloolik to return to the traditional Inuit way of life.

Bad River(en)

Wisconsin's tribe's ongoing fight to protect Lake Superior for future generations. "Bad River" shows the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa's long history of activism and resistance in the context of continuing legal battles with Enbridge Energy over its Line 5 oil pipeline. The Line 5 pipeline has been operating on 12 miles of the Bad River Band's land with expired easements for more than a decade. The Band and the Canadian company have been locked in a legal battle over the pipeline since 2019.

Coast Modern(en)

A core group of architects embraced the West Coast from Vancouver to LA with its particular geography and values and left behind a legacy of inspired dwellings. Today, architects celebrate the influence established by their predecessors.

Oldemors reise(no)

NiiSoTeWak: Two Bodies, One Heart(en)

NiiSoTeWak means “walking the path together.” Tapwewin and Pawaken are 10-year-old brothers trying to make sense of the world, their family and each other. They’re already grappling with some heady questions about identity. What does it mean to be a twin? What does it mean to be Cree? How do you define yourself when you’re forever linked to someone else? The twins discuss these questions with their two elder brothers — 22-year-old actor Asivak and 20-year-old basketball player Mahiigan — and their parents, Jules and Jake.

Karihwanoron: Precious Things(en)

Yagorihwanirats, a Mohawk child from Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in Quebec, attends a unique and special school: Karihwanoron. It is a Mohawk immersion program that teaches Mohawk language, culture and philosophy. Yagorihwanirats is so excited to go to school that she never wants to miss a day – even if she is sick.

Shameless Propaganda(en)

This feature documentary examines its own genre, which has often been called Canada's national art form. Released in the year of the NFB's 75th birthday, Shameless Propaganda is filmmaker Robert Lower's take on the boldest and most compelling propaganda effort in our history (1939-1945), in which founding NFB Commissioner John Grierson saw the documentary as a "hammer to shape society". All 500 of the films produced by the NFB until 1945 are distilled here for the essence of their message to Canadians. Using only these films and still photos from that era, Lower recreates the picture of Canada they gave us and looks in it for the Canada we know today. What he finds is by turns enlightening, entertaining, and unexpectedly disturbing.

Indian Rights for Indian Women(en)

Three intrepid women battle for Indigenous women's treaty rights.

Operation Gamescan 76(en)

This short documentary profiles the Canadian military’s organization, logistical, and security operations at the XXI Olympiad held in 1976 in Montréal. The scale of the operation was large: 16,000 troops were mobilized to provide protection for 7,500 athletes, countless VIPs, and the general public on 138 sites located in Montreal, Bromont, and Kingston. This film offers a behind-the-scenes look at the planning and synchronization necessary to mount a successful international event of massive proportions.

Trick or Treaty?(en)

Legendary Canadian documentarian Alanis Obomsawin digs into the tangled history of Treaty 9 — the infamous 1905 agreement wherein First Nations communities relinquished sovereignty over their traditional territories — to reveal the deceptions and distortions which the document has been subjected to by successive governments seeking to deprive Canada’s First Peoples of their lands.

Life After(en)

Life After opens the dialogue surrounding grief and how we experience it. Through conversations with Nicola Winstanley and Carmen Galavan about what grief is and how it affects us, we learn what it really means to live a life after.

Propaganda Message(en)

A cartoon film about the whole heterogeneous mixture of Canada and Canadians, and the way the invisible adhesive called federalism makes it all cling together. That the dissenting voices are many is made amply evident, in English and French. But this animated message also shows that Canadians can laugh at themselves and work out their problems objectively.

The Corporation(en)

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

Highway to the Arctic(de)

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.

Artist on Fire: Joyce Wieland(en)

Considered one of Canada's most important women artists of the second half of the 20th century, Joyce Wieland's art embodies the essence of her homeland, feminism, and ecology. Artist on Fire: Joyce Wieland captures the vibrant spirit of this painter, collagist, quilt maker, and filmmaker. In the early '70s, Wieland was involved in filmmaking, producing movies with a political message. In her 30-year career, she worked in a variety of mediums, including cloth, pastels, colored pencil, oils, bronze, and watercolor. Her works and her influence are examined in this detailed video portrait.

Straight Up: Helicopters in Action(en)

Straight Up: Helicopters in Action will take audiences on a series of aerial adventures. Fly along with skilled helicopter crews as they carry out sea and mountain rescues, apprehend drug smugglers, repair high voltage lines, save endangered animals, deliver humanitarian aid, and undertake a reconnaissance mission. Learn how helicopters are flown.

Honour to Senator Murray Sinclair(en)

Murray Sinclair's acceptance speech for an award in honor of his role as chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, intercut with the testimonies of survivors of the Indian residential school system.