Canada was led to war by a bigoted, ignorant, self-obsessed Minister of Militia, who may well have been clinically insane, but the importance of Canada's contribution in that war owes a great deal to him. The man of course, was Colonel - later made Lieutenant General by his own hand - Sam Hughes. Sam's Army is a compelling portrait of a complex man and the formidable military he built. Sam Hughes was not your standard-issue military leader. Canada's World War I Minister of Militia and Defence concentrated power in his own hands, insisted that the Canadian military use the ill-conceived Ross rifle and liberally promoted his cronies. But there was no denying Hughes was a visionary. He assembled the world's largest-ever volunteer army and bucked superiors to keep his ferocious fighting force together in one Canadian Corps.
Canada was led to war by a bigoted, ignorant, self-obsessed Minister of Militia, who may well have been clinically insane, but the importance of Canada's contribution in that war owes a great deal to him. The man of course, was Colonel - later made Lieutenant General by his own hand - Sam Hughes. Sam's Army is a compelling portrait of a complex man and the formidable military he built. Sam Hughes was not your standard-issue military leader. Canada's World War I Minister of Militia and Defence concentrated power in his own hands, insisted that the Canadian military use the ill-conceived Ross rifle and liberally promoted his cronies. But there was no denying Hughes was a visionary. He assembled the world's largest-ever volunteer army and bucked superiors to keep his ferocious fighting force together in one Canadian Corps.
1999-03-01
10
Far from Home: Canada and the Great War - Part 1
A two-hour documentary which recreates for the viewer one of the greatest battles in Canadian military history. The film was made to show that Canadian character at its best, forging an identity for a country that before the First World War had been seen only as a British colony - an identity and a character that became recognized and respected throughout Europe.
The musical adventure film goes back to the early eighteenth century, the times of the battles between the Hungarian insurrectionists and the pro-Austrians. Palkó and Jankó are about to join the insurrectionist army when they clash with a pro-Austrian troop. Jankó is captured and put in Count Koháry's prison.
An animated road-movie set across the vast and barren landscape of Australia's Nullarbor Plain.
Lisa is fried in the heat of the sun. She is sick, miserable and out of water, but finds a lake to cool down in. A local sports-fisherman spies on her, but when Lisa drowns, he is stuck with a blond, naked "dead bait". What to do then?
"This piece, with the generic title Film, is a series of short videos built around one protocol: a snippet of news from a newspaper of the day, is rolled up and then placed on a black-inked surface. On making contact with the liquid, the roll opens and of Its own accord frees itself of the gesture that fashioned it. As it comes alive in this way, the sliver of paper reveals Its hitherto unexposed content; this unpredictable kinematics is evidence of the constant impermanence of news. As well as exploring a certain archaeology of cinema, the mechanism references the passage of time: the ink, whether it is poured or printed, is the ink of ongoing human history." –Ismaïl Bahri
After he's continually harrassed and bullied by his town's citizens, the orphaned teenage son of a notorious gunslinger takes flight and joins a gang of youthful outlaws.
Polish Jews, who were forced to leave their country in 1968, meet every year in Ashkelon. After nearly 40 years, they share their memories of exile, loss and regret, and still consider themselves Polish.
THE RED SEA MIRACLE 2 continues to raise big questions about biblical miracles. How could thousands of feet of water be parted at the Red Sea? Or was the sea merely parted by the act of wind in nature, through a shallow Egyptian lake? Mahoney investigates these locations to see if any have a pattern of evidence matching the Bible. People of faith will be inspired and skeptics will have much to think about as Mahoney reveals two decades of documentary research including if divers found the remains of Pharaoh's army on the seafloor. This cinematic journey leads him to inquire... 'Do miracles still happen today?'
“History is not just a matter of date”, said Chris Patten in his last speech as British Governor of Hong Kong, shortly before the United Kingdom handed administration of the province back to China in 1997. In DECAMERON, Rita Hui Nga Shu combines this speech and other historical sources with fiction and contemporary images. Her gripping documentary takes a critical look, for example, at the question of what Hong Kong actually is at this particular moment in time.
A film crew struggles to finish a motorcycle-stunt epic despite repeated threats of sabotage from the mob.
A modern retelling of H.G. Wells classic novel, The Invisible Man. Motivated by the death of his son, Griffin, a brilliant but eccentric scientist discovers a method to invisibility.
Following two Water Australia employees who travel out along the Nullarbor Plain only to discover they are being hunted by the mythological creature, the Nullarbor Nymph.
Two men, who have been fighting on the enemy sides in WWII, meet in the jazz club twenty years after. Mladen, who was a partisan at the time, recognizes a familiar face of a man whom he was supposed to shoot, but missed on purpose.
Forty-year-old Sandro is married to Claude. Sandro has one strange obsession: he is a self-confessed voyeur. He films his wife in all walks of life on his wobbly hand held camcorder. But everything changes when Mark enters their life.
A Chilean exile leaves his Swedish partner to return to Chile. There he meets his old love, Consuelo.
A not-so-heartwarming tale about capsule toys, the nightmare of obsession, jealous rage, and a slimy, stop-frame animated tiny monster.
The scene opens on a theatrical stage. The magician enters from the wings, and making a bow to the audience, removes his coat and hat and they disappear mysteriously in the air. He then takes a white handkerchief from his pocket, holds it over his knees, and his long trousers disappear, and behold! he is clad in knickerbockers. He next makes a pass with a magic wand and a table suddenly appears before the audience, on which is a large pile of tissue paper. The magician takes up the paper and shakes it a few times and three live geese fly out upon the floor. This is a highly pleasing and mystifying subject.
Alvin York a hillbilly sharpshooter transforms himself from ruffian to religious pacifist. He is then called to serve his country and despite deep religious and moral objections to fighting becomes one of the most celebrated American heroes of WWI.
During the final days of the First World War, Officer Menis does his duty in defending the battle flag of the defeated Austro-Hungarian empire, while his fellow troops, a motley gang recruited from several different countries not loyal to the royal family, simply try to survive by any means possible.
This documentary reveals the impacts of the Sixties Scoop, a period in which a series of Canadian policies enabled child welfare authorities to take, or “scoop up,” Indigenous children from their families and communities for placement in white foster homes. Explore Indigenous resilience through narrative sovereignty as experienced through the Little Bird series’ Indigenous creatives, cast, crew & community members.
A young Catholic priest from Boston confronts bigotry, Nazism, and his own personal conflicts as he rises to the office of cardinal.
The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.
1972, the height of the cold war era, Canada vs USSR. 8 games of hard fought Hockey that would go onto change how Hockey is seen and played the world over. This made for TV documentary follows the 'Summit Series', an international Hockey event that would not only engulf the nations involved, but the entire world.
Set in a dugout in Aisne in 1918, a group of British officers, led by the mentally disintegrating young officer Stanhope, variously await their fate.
On the Eve of WW2, the royal government of Yugoslavia hid the national money inside the cave around village of Ozrinići in Montenegro. The locals discovered the heaps of money by accident, and soon begun to build new houses and buy the land. Unfortunately, the Italians occupied the country and burned their properties to ashes. Based on a true story.
This feature documentary offers a complete record of the 1939 Royal Tour of Canada by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The film opens as the royal couple makes a stop in Québec city, where Premier Duplessis greets them. They then visit Montréal and meet mayor Camilien Houde. A visit to Ottawa brings them to Parliament, where Prime Minister MacKenzie King is present. The visit continues throughout Ontario, the prairies, and western Canada. The Royal couple also makes a brief stop in Washington and meets President Franklin Roosevelt. They then stop in on the Maritime provinces before boarding a Royal yacht for the journey back to England.
This documentary by Michael Rubbo (Waiting for Fidel) offers candid glimpses of Indonesia and its people. Filming in and around the capital of Jakarta, the cameras follow where chance leads, capturing the flavour of life in this fertile crescent of tropical islands. Throughout the film, the focus is on a society caught between the past and the conflicting options for the future - to change or not to change from long-established patterns of life to ones more influenced by western technology.
This feature length documentary by Jacques Godbout tackles a topic all too rarely explored in the media: terrorism in Canadian society. From Montreal to Vancouver, and Quebec City to Toronto, exasperated individuals find a new calling as self-style saviours of humanity and decide to mete out their own justice. Part reportage, part essay and part critical analysis of the phenomenon, this film includes first-hand accounts by Serge Daoust, Franco Piperno, François Schirm, Pierre Vallières and young militants from the journal Révoltes.
In the summer of 2000, federal fishery officers appeared to wage war on the Mi'gmaq fishermen of Burnt Church, New Brunswick. Why would officials of the Canadian government attack citizens for exercising rights that had been affirmed by the highest court in the land? Alanis Obomsawin casts her nets into history to provide a context for the events on Miramichi Bay.
In November 1918, a few days before the Armistice, when Lieutenant Pradelle orders a senseless attack, he causes a useless disaster; but his outrageous act also binds the lives of two soldiers who have nothing more in common than the battlefield: Édouard saves Albert, although at a high cost. They become companions in misfortune who will attempt to survive in a changing world. Pradelle, in his own way, does the same.
The story, starring Constance Bennett and Douglass Montgomery, involves a Canadian POW being hidden by a German citizen during World War I.
Shortly after the United States enters World War I in 1917, a Broadway actress agrees to let a naive soldier court her in order to impress his friends, but a real romance soon begins.
As his health rapidly deteriorates, legendary Algonquin Park fishing guide Frank Kuiack spends his last fishing season searching for someone to whom he can pass on his wisdom.
August 1914. While the German army is gaining ground in the North of France, four boys aged 10 to 15, LUcien, LUcas, LUigi and LUdwig are left behind during the evacuation of their orphanage. Without the protection of Abbé Turpin and the schoolteacher Leutellier, the Lulus are now stranded on their own behind the enemy front line. Soon joined by LUce, a pretty young girl separated from her parents, they decide to reach the neutral country of Switzerland by all means possible... they embark on an adventure for which nothing and no one has prepared them!
From growing potatoes in Green Park, London, to transforming rabbit crates into seed boxes – just a couple of the many ingenious ways of supporting the war effort which are covered in this film from the Ministry of Information.
A young Austrian soldier in World War I fights his way through the Alps to rescue his Italian girlfriend and escape the impending explosion that will rock the mountain.