Christmastime at the Roman Catholic-run Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia.
Social & External
The people behind it
The world knows the image of the good Canadian. But what if there was a dark secret behind a national identity? THE GOOD CANADIAN exposes the truth behind the idea of a True North strong and free. In this unflinching and eye-opening documentary, directors Leena Minifie and David Paperny move us through the corridors of systemic inequity, from the Indian Act to residential schools, to modern-day family separation. Fusing shocking footage with detailed interviews with experts, advocates, whistleblowers and politicians, THE GOOD CANADIAN challenges national myth-making, while offering Canadians the chance to forge a new identity from the truth.
Between 1879 and 1986, upwards of 100,000 children in Canada were forcibly removed and placed into Indian Industrial Residential Schools. Their unique culture was stripped away to be replaced with a foreign European identity. Their family ties were cut, parents were forbidden to visit their children, and the children were prevented from returning home.
A poetic exploration of the multi-generational affects of Canada's Indian Residential School system, based on the personal trials of Aboriginal playwright Yvette Nolan.
“Kill the Indian to save the man” was the catchphrase of The Carlisle Indian Industrial School, a boarding school opened in Pennsylvania in 1879. It became a grim epitaph for numerous native children who died there. In 2017, a delegation from the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming attempts to retrieve the remains of three Northern Arapaho children buried far from home in the school cemetery, on a journey to recast the troubled legacy of Indian boarding schools, and heal historic wounds. This documentary film is produced by The Content Lab LLC, with support from The Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund, The Wyoming Humanities Council, and Wyoming PBS.
This documentary examines some of the important events in Canada during the Depression years: the Moose River mine disaster, the great drought on the prairies and the introduction of a transatlantic air service between Canada and Europe. The film also looks at the major world events that influenced Canada: the abdication of the king of England; civil war in Spain; Hitler's rise to power and Canada's declaration of war on Germany. Part of the Between Two Wars series.
Today it is the city of Montreal, but 3 centuries ago the tiny band of missionary founders called it Ville-Marie, the holy city of Mary. This film goes back to its beginning and those who felt called to plant an oasis of Christianity in the North American wilderness. In an imaginative, at times almost surrealistic, way the film recalls the highborn company from France, and shows what survives of Ville-Marie in the Montreal of today.
This film explores how Canada wavers between rejection and acceptance of closer ties with the United States, tracing the historical precedents of current issues between the two nations. Canada continues to question her identity despite the influence of a powerful neighbour.
This film presents the historical development of lighthouses in Canada, and shows the conversion from keeper-maintained lights to automated equipment.
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.
A documentary recounting the kidnappings of British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Vice-Premier & Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte by the FLQ on October 5, 1970 in Quebec.
Felix Funicello is a Catholic school fifth-grader in 1964, whose claim to fame is his cousin Annette Funicello, the famous Mouseketeer and teen movie queen. But grammar and arithmetic move to the back burner this holiday season with the sudden arrivals of substitute teacher Madame Frechette and feisty Russian student Zhenya Kabakova. While Felix learns the meaning of French kissing, cultural misunderstanding, and tableaux vivants, Wishin' and Hopin' barrels toward one outrageous Christmas!
Muffins for Granny is a remarkably layered, emotionally complex story of personal and cultural survival. McLaren tells the story of her own grandmother by combining precious home movie fragments with the stories of seven elders dramatically affected by their experiences in residential school. McLaren uses animation with a painterly visual approach to move the audience between the darkness of memory and the reality that these charismatic survivors live in today.
On January 18, 2019, 17-year old Nick Sandmann, a student at the affluent Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, was internationally villainized on social media and in the 24-hour news cycle as he and his classmates appeared to confront Native American elder Nathan Phillips on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. during a March for Life rally. Video clips of the interaction went viral overnight and Sandmann and his classmates faced worldwide outrage as the entire Covington Catholic community became the center of uncomfortable conversations about racism, privilege and politics.
Renowned as the richest gold strike in North American mining history, the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1899) set off a stampede of over 100,000 people on a colossal journey from Alaska to the gold fields of Canada's Yukon Territory. Filled with the frontier spirit, prospectors came and gave rise to what was one of the largest cities in Canada at that time - Dawson City. The boomtown, which became known as "the Paris of the North", earned the reputation as a place where lives could be revolutionized. Brought to life with excerpts from the celebrated book The Klondike Stampede - published in 1900 by Harper's Weekly correspondent Tappan Adney - and featuring interviews with award-winning author Charlotte Gray, and historians Terrence Cole and Michael Gates, The Klondike Gold Rush is an incredible story of determination, luck, fortune, and loss. In the end, it isn't all about the gold, but rather the journey to the Klondike itself.
A 15 minute documentary utilizing archival Super 8 film footage and original animation about a father fulfilling his dream of reconnecting his 5 small children to the steps of his own father when he fought for the Canadian military in WW2 through a trip to Europe in 1973.
This documentary offers a deep, candid, and historical look at the Christian experience of America's largest and best-known tribes: the Dakota and Lakota. Its exploration into Native American history also takes a hard and detailed look at President Ulysses S. Grant's Peace Policy of 1873, which was, in effect, a "convert to Episcopalianism or starve" edict put forth by the American government in direct violation of its Constitution. The devastation it had on the values of the people affected were dramatic and extremely long-lasting. Grant's policy was finally ended over 100 years later by the Freedom of American Indian Religions Act in 1978. Interlaced with extraordinarily candid interviews, this documentary presents an insider's perspective of how the Dakota and Lakota were estranged from their religious beliefs and their long-standing traditions.
For more than 100 years, thousands of Indigenous children died while in Canada’s residential school system. Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones survived, but he, like many others, experienced years of beatings and sexual abuse. The scandal has finally brought the Indigenous rights struggle into focus, none more so than at Fairy Creek, an area of forest on First Nations land that protesters are desperately trying to prevent from falling into the hands of logging companies.
Filmed on location in Saskatchewan from the Qu'Appelle Valley to Hudson Bay, the documentary traces the filmmaker's quest for her Native foremothers in spite of the reluctance to speak about Native roots on the part of her relatives. The film articulates Métis women's experience with racism in both current and historical context, and examines the forces that pushed them into the shadows.
For over 200 years, European history has taught us that Newfoundland's Beothuk people are extinct. Giving voice to the Indigenous people, archaeologists, genealogists, and historians from across Atlantic Canada, The Beothuk Story debunks this myth. Here, for the first time in Canadian documentary history, the Beothuk people speak for themselves. This is their story.
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
An investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school in Canada ignites a reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve.
The cast of “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” delivers an abundance of feel-good holiday cheer as they perform their favorite Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s songs and share their fondest holiday memories.
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
Journey into the extraordinary world of "The Witcher" — from casting the roles to Jaskier's catchy song — in this behind-the-scenes look at the series.
Filmed at the end of the tour in Vancouver, B.C., with the entire Tortured Poets Department set.
Captured during Billie Eilish's sold-out world tour, a concert experience from one of the most celebrated and successful artists of her generation, presented in immersive 3D.
In 1997, Louis Theroux made a documentary about the world of male porn performers in Los Angeles. 15 years later, he returns to find a business struggling with the deluge of free porn on the internet. Louis revisits some of the original programme's contributors as well as meeting the latest crop of porn performers dreaming of porn stardom.
Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
49 Up is the seventh film in a series of landmark documentaries that began 42 years ago when UK-based Granada's World in Action team, inspired by the Jesuit maxim "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man," interviewed a diverse group of seven-year-old children from all over England, asking them about their lives and their dreams for the future. Michael Apted, a researcher for the original film, has returned to interview the "children" every seven years since, at ages 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and now again at age 49.In this latest chapter, more life-changing decisions are revealed, more shocking announcements made and more of the original group take part than ever before, speaking out on a variety of subjects including love, marriage, career, class and prejudice.
Explore how writers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss created the hit television sensation. Take a personal voyage through the versions of Holmes that have served as inspirations for the new series - the original stories, their factual origins, hundreds of film adaptations - to arrive at their thoroughly modern Sherlock. Moffat and Gatiss explain the challenges they encountered adapting the original adventures of the iconic super-sleuth. Go behind the scenes on the set of the hit television series, including interviews with actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman and Lara Pulver, who talk about the reinvention of their fictional characters.
On September 15, 1963, a bomb destroyed a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls who were there for Sunday school. It was a crime that shocked the nation--and a defining moment in the history of the civil-rights movement. Spike Lee re-examines the full story of the bombing, including a revealing interview with former Alabama Governor George Wallace.
The film follows adventurer Jeff Johnson as he retraces the epic 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins to Patagonia.
Whether you’re a devoted disciple looking to relive treasured memories of the GHOST live spectacle or among the curious uninitiated, RITE HERE RITE NOW will put you right there: putting your phones down and living in the moment—as a shadow of uncertainty looms—completely spellbound and in the thrall of this bombastic yet intimate cinematic portrait of GHOST.
A documentary on the making of the three Godfather films, with interviews and recollections from the film makers and cast. This feature also includes the original screen tests of some of the actors for "The Godfather" film, and some candid moments on the set of "The Godfather: Part III."
A look behind the lens of Christopher Nolan's space epic.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, director Bryan Fogel connects with renegade Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov—a pillar of his country’s “anti-doping” program. Over dozens of Skype calls, urine samples, and badly administered hormone injections, Fogel and Rodchenkov grow closer despite shocking allegations that place Rodchenkov at the center of Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program.
After years in the limelight, Selena Gomez achieves unimaginable stardom. But just as she reaches a new peak, an unexpected turn pulls her into darkness. This uniquely raw and intimate documentary spans her six-year journey into a new light.