Four Nations Facing Off

Europe´s Forgotten Giants(sv)

A story about Europe´s largest terrestrial mammal and their potential return to Swedish forests. The audience also meets Rikard, the main caretaker of Avesta Visentpark and who shares his inner reflections and hopes regarding the future of the European bison.

Michelle Obama: Life After the White House(en)

Former First Lady Michelle Obama's story has just begun. The Obamas have remained quite busy with their new life of activism which includes their issue-oriented production company, Higher Ground, which won an Oscar for Best Documentary in 2020. Mrs. Obama's autobiography, Becoming, has become the best-selling memoir of all time and even won a Grammy following the publication of her book. Get lost in the incredible journey of this modern-day First Lady's story in the making...

La fièvre du castor(en)

This lively satire uses animation and a pseudo-documentary style to depict Canada's search for a national identity. The National Scream explains, amongst other elements of Canadiana, how and why the beaver became the country's symbol.

Hunting Matthew Nichols(en)

Twenty-three years after her brother mysteriously disappeared, a documentary filmmaker sets out to solve his missing person's case. But when a disturbing piece of evidence is revealed, she comes to believe that her brother might still be alive.

Your Call Is Important To Us(fr)

The only thing colder than a Canadian winter is Canadian bureaucracy (probably). Based on five real life stories, Romy Boutin St-Pierre and Joe Nadeau pay homage to the nation-wide stress headache of phone calls with the government in this surprising short.

Home Front(en)

This short documentary is part of the Canada Carries On series of morale-boosting wartime propaganda films. In Home Front, the various WWII-era social contributions of women are highlighted. From medicine to industrial labour to hospitality, education and domesticity, the service these women provided to their country is lauded.

Hot Ice(en)

This short documentary offers a close-up view of a hectic hockey game in which the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New York Rangers fight to break a tied score. From the flash of blades, the spurting ice, and the echoing roar of avid fans, the film occasionally turns back to neighbourhood games where youngsters learn skating and stickhandling, the fundamentals of professional skill. Stars, such as Clint Smith, Bob Davidson, Syl Apps and others, are seen in action.

Nanook of the North(en)

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.

Somos(pt)

In sport everything is movement; how images are produced to record moments that will quickly cease to be current. SOMOS juxtaposes images of some moments lived between January to December 2019 in this eclectic club that is Sporting. If quickly as images become memory; will memory rise to identity?

The Sterilization of Leilani Muir(en)

The life and times of Leilani Muir, the first person to file a lawsuit against the Alberta provincial government for wrongful sterilization under the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta.

Santa's Wild Home(en)

Green lights dance across a star-filled sky, and snowflakes sparkle on the trees. It is little wonder Lapland is famous as a realm of elves and flying reindeer, the magical home of Santa Claus. This northernmost region of mainland Europe, however, is a real place, with real animals such as reindeer, Great Gray owls, wolverines, eagles, wolves, musk oxen and Brown bears who live out their lives in the tundra and forest.

Off Sides(cs)

When the junior ice hockey team from the small town of Náchod, in the Czech Republic, sets off in a bus to Morocco to play the away game in an exchange programme, the players and their coach expect an easy victory and a cultural shock: “bring ear plugs”, the coach suggests them with a touch of undisguised condescendence, so as not to hear the call to prayer early in the morning. Both on and off the ice, Rozálie Kohoutová and Tomáš Bojar’s camera focuses on a few teenagers and their exchanges, simultaneously funny and cruel, in a clumsy English.

Water Time: Surf Travel Diary of a MadMan(en)

Surfer and author, Allan C. Weisbecker, accompanied by his dog Honey, goes on the road in search of waves to ride and "to find out what happened to America."

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.

Crimes Without Honour(en)

Every winter in a cemetery near Stockholm, activists gather to keep the memory of Fadime Sahindal alive. A Kurdish immigrant to Sweden who was murdered by her father in 2002, Fadime has become an international symbol of the debate over cultural traditions that accept the use of violence to control women's behaviour. In Crimes Without Honour, four extraordinary activists risk everything to publicly challenge these traditions and tell their own stories of physical and emotional violence. While they practice different faiths, hail from different parts of the world and have immigrated to different countries, all make it crystal clear that the justification for these crimes is an entrenched family power structure of male supremacy—one that crosses borders, cultures and religions. Raymonde Provencher has crafted a vital addition to a growing body of films about crimes related to patriarchal traditions of family honour.

Dief!(en)

This documentary short is a portrait of Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and 13th prime minister of Canada, John George Diefenbaker (1895-1979). Diefenbaker's political career spanned 6 decades. When he died in 1979, his state funeral and final train trip west became more a celebration of life than a victory for death.

Arbitres(fr)

This House Is Not A Home(en)

A short documentary about gentrification and tenant activism in one Toronto neighbourhood, "This House Is Not A Home" presents a poignant and informative look into resident experiences in Parkdale.

Boisbouscache(fr)

The TNO (Unorganized Territory) Lac-Boisbouscache is a 150 square kilometer public forest located in the Lower St. Lawrence region of Quebec, Canada. Through the eyes of the forest's residents and users, the film paints a portrait of a territory that has long been coveted by private groups with diverse interests. Boisbouscache is a story of dispossession based on current commercial uses combined with the absence of any political will.

The Boys Are Back(en)

Documentary that follows the Edmonton Oilers at the beginning of the 1988-89 NHL hockey season, as Wayne Gretzky makes his return with the Los Angeles Kings for the first time since being traded.