After the near death of her grandfather, Chinese Canadian filmmaker Michelle Wong embarks on a personal journey back home to her small town of St. Paul, Alberta to speak to her grandparents about their journey from China to Canada.
Social & External
This anthology film, whose Chinese title begins with a romantic name for human excrement, premiered internationally at Rotterdam and won Best Screenplay from the Hong Kong Film Critics Society. A variety of Hong Kong people wrestle with nostalgia when facing an uncertain future. Their stories give way to a documentary featuring a young barista turned political candidate.
Prague, 2022 - Having found refuge from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, two women and their young daughters face the waiting and hope of an imminent return to Ukraine. Shelved in this city, these women tell the story of their past and give access to their daily life, their present, in which they try to learn how to live again. This documentary tries to give a voice to those who live war differently.
A slice-of-life documentary following a visually-impaired married couple as they prepare for a trip to the grocery store.
After her gender identity was denied in her homeland, Lee Li, a transgender asylum seeker, was forced to leave her country, family, and language to embark on a journey toward belonging, freedom, and self-empowerment.
An absurd game of “finding happiness” is being played by local Latvian coyotes* and illegal immigrants on the Russian and the European Union border. It is a game with no winner – all participants are driven to play by the sense of despair. While one side leaves home and undertakes a perilous journey to the other side of the globe, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in a free country, the other side risks their freedom to earn a chance to stay right where they are, in their homeland. *coyote – someone who smuggles illegal immigrants
Based on the popular phone service, "How To Make a Sandwich" is a short film directed by Drake Sanderson that depicts the rise of media star, Peter Willard, and his acclaimed sandwich-making skills. From breads to meats to condiments, follow Peter as he teaches you how to make the perfect sandwich!
Follows Vietnamese migrant workers, to examine the reasons behind their numerous escapes and to trace the family situations of those who were deported from Taiwan.
A Finnish documentary follows four young men who have one year to find new love in Helsinki.
Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy builds a multi-million dollar empire by baking America's favourite pastry: the doughnut.
Armoured elephants, sacred monkeys and a camel carriage from Rajasthan.
Artistic director of the National Theater Eric de Vroedt writes and directs a performance about his own mother Winnie, who passed away in 2020. This piece, titled The Century of My Mother, is a family story about the migration from the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands. It is De Vroedt's way of examining the relationship with his mother and not having to say goodbye to her yet: 'I can let her live on stage, but when the curtain falls, when the play is completely finished, then she is really dead'.
In 1915 a young, charismatic Japanese man with a mysterious past entered into the Appalachian culture of Asheville, North Carolina, is suspicioned a spy, targeted by the Klan, but perseveres with a passion for photography and the mountains he adopts, bringing to life Great Smoky Mountains National Park & the Appalachian Trail.
A documentary from within the Swedish Migration Board's locked repository where people are in custody awaiting forced deportation. Prisoner and guard are in close proximity around the clock. Converses during sleepless nights and playing football during hot summer days. We follow Sophie, 29, who loves her job at the repository, Sami, 20, the young rebel who is locked up but free inside, and Aina, 47, who were separated from her children and kept locked up while the police are stepping up efforts to enforce their expulsion order.
A family decides to move to the most remote place they can find and live for as long as they can. This is the true story of a family living off the land in remote Alaska with no modern tools or 'luxuries' (except a movie camera!). This documentary is a year in their life.
Fleeing religious persecution, resilient Jewish immigrants arrive in Toronto and begin building affordable, quality housing in a growing metropolis.
A short film following Anthony, a young child from the small, rural town of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. We see him in different moments of his daily life as he interacts with different forms of environmental, familial, and social influences. While Anthony displays contradictory traits of creativity, destruction, rigidity, and tenderness as he interacts with his external and internal worlds, we see a story built from the the multidimensionality of Anthony's layered personality as a young man.
Stone Street documents the life and experiences of a Trinidadian diaspora family and their enduring connection to the long standing family home in Port of Spain. Through the intersecting journeys of this extended and extensive family, the filmmaker explores themes of home, belonging and identity in a life defined by the fragmentary nature of a migratory Caribbean culture. This experimental documentary combines a lyrical first person voice with a family archive of home made audio visual artifacts, interviews and events. As the documentary explores the fragmentary nature of Caribbean identity, it simultaneously celebrates the fragments of domestic memorializing found in home movies, videos and photographs. Stone Street uses these various forms to evoke the experience of a complex and diverse Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora identity.
A documentary exploring the experiences and attitudes of Indian and Pakistani taxi drivers in New York City while also questioning the filmmaker's relationship to these South Asian immigrants and to his mixed-race heritage.
Made by an English family living in north India during the heyday of the Raj, this amateur film reveals the grandeur in which middle-class English colonials lived.
What does it actually mean to be Canadian? This humorous documentary, featuring interviews with a who's-who of famous Canadians, hopes to find the answer.
Filmmaker Martin Scorsese interviews his mother and father about their life in New York and family history back in Sicily.
In 1992, teenager Sandi Tan shot Singapore's first indie road movie with her enigmatic American mentor Georges – who then vanished with all the footage. Twenty years later, the 16mm film is recovered, sending Tan, now a novelist in Los Angeles, on a personal odyssey in search of Georges' vanishing footprints.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
A purely observational non-fiction film that takes viewers into the ethically murky world of end-of-life decision making in a public hospital.
After the high-profile killing of Damilola Taylor, Cornelius' family move out of London. But when they discover their new town is run by racists, Cornelius takes a drastic step to survive.
Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
A documentary examining the decade of the 1970s as a turning point in American cinema. Some of today's best filmmakers interview the influential directors of that time.
Martin Scorsese’s portrait of writer and social commentator Fran Lebowitz, celebrated for her sharp wit and observations on modern life. Filmed at New York’s Waverly Inn and intercut with archival footage and interviews, the documentary captures Lebowitz’s distinctive worldview through her spontaneous monologues and public appearances.
JB Smoove and Martin Starr host a celebration of 20 years of "Spider-Man" movies, from the Sam Raimi trilogy to Marc Webb's movies and the trio from Jon Watts.
After starting a family of his very own in the United States, a gay filmmaker documents his loving, traditional Chinese family's process of acceptance.
Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.
A filmmaker who grew up alongside Chucky the killer doll seeks out the other families surrounding the Child's Play films as they recount their experiences working on the ongoing franchise and what it means to be a part of the, "Chucky" family.
From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.
Explore the evolution of Buzz Lightyear from toy to human in the making of Pixar’s Lightyear. Dive into the origin and cultural impact of everyone’s favorite Space Ranger, the art of designing a new “human Buzz,” and the challenges faced by the Lightyear crew along the way.
A look at the fight choreography being developed for the film.
A documentary on a former Miss Wyoming who is charged with abducting and imprisoning a young Mormon Missionary.
Canadian actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley investigates certain secrets related to her mother, interviewing a group of family members and friends whose reliability varies depending of their implication in the events, which are remembered in different ways; so a trail of questions remains to be answered, because memory is always changing and the discovery of truth often depends on who is telling the tale.
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.