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On September 12, 2002 twenty "at risk" 12-year-old boys from the tough streets of inner-city Baltimore left home to attend the 7th and 8th grade at Baraka, an experimental boarding school located in Kenya, East Africa. Here, faced with a strict academic and disciplinary program as well as the freedom to be normal teenage boys, these brave kids began the daunting journey towards putting their lives on a fresh path.
Since 1999, more than 2,000 women have been murdered in Guatemala, with numbers escalating every year, yet lawmakers and government officials turn a blind eye. Powerful and uncompromising, Killer's Paradise uncovers an emotionally wrenching human rights tragedy, while exposing an inept judicial system that allows it to happen. After almost four decades of civil war, Guatemala is a troubled society, but it can also be seen as a microcosm of the pervasive violence and injustice against women worldwide. Discussion with the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network.
This special PREMIER SCREENING is in conjunction with the Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal (RIDM) - Montreal's documentary film festival. Special thanks to the producers and the Bavarian Institute for their cooperation in making this screening happen.
In the Same Boat? tells the story of two neighboring fishing communities – one Mi’kmaq, the other non-native - both struggling to defend their ways of life. Shot on Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy coast, the two-part documentary explores the grounds for solidarity between indigenous and non-native communities, while showing the very different role fishing plays in both cultures.
Dommages de guerre en temps de paix. Depuis 1990, les Forces canadiennes ne cessent de se déployer en divers endroits de la planète : Golfe Persique, Rwanda, Bosnie, Afghanistan, Cambodge, Haïti, Liban...
In 1999, the residents of Tambogrande, a small town in northern Peru, learned that the Fujimori government had secretly granted mining concessions on their land to the multi-national corporation, Manhattan Minerals. The company's plans for an open-pit gold mine would involve relocation of half of the town's residents, and contaminate the soil and ground water in this agricultural region famous for its fruit orchards.
This short from the CBC's Digital Diversity Program, will be screened before
Did you know that the Canadian post office is currently being sued by an American corporation under the rules of NAFTA? Free trade or subtle sellout? The feature documentary Hoodwinked: The Myth of Free Trade examines some of the less-talked-about effects of free trade and corporate globalization on Canada. It was produced by West/Dunn Productions of Ottawa.
Outfoxed examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of
One of the most controversial issues of our times: Vancouver's struggle to open Canada's first safeinjection site for drug users. It is the story of a man and a city fighting drugs and addiction. Dean Wilson used to be an IBM salesman. Now he is possible the most outspoken drug addict in Canada. Ann Livingston is the charismatic organizer of Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. She is a nonuser, driven by an impatient spirituality. In 27 cities around the world, safe injection sites have proven to save lives.
The banana is the cheapest fruit you can buy in Canada at any time of the year and Canadians eat approximately 3 billion bananas a year. In Canadian supermarkets bananas account for over 10% of total sales in the produce section and 1% of total sales. All this despite the fact that the nearest plantation is 5000 kilometres away and the banana is the most perishable fruit on our store shelves. Banana Split takes the viewer on a journey that begins with the hustle and bustle of a fruit market in Thunder Bay, Ontario and ends up with an examination of the daily challenges of life in Honduras.
"... This film about consumerism totally consumed us. It used the language of music video, propaganda and commercial advertising as a response to the forces of globalisation. It fights fire with fire. The questions it raises are ultimately more important than any answers it might suggest. And we believe audiences can only profit from the debate that will ensue. For its originality, sense of humour, irony, forcefulness and visual virtuosity, the Silver Wolf Award goes to SURPLUS."
- The Jury of the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, Nov.2003.
In the Year of the Pig is a 1968 documentary film about the origins of the Vietnam War, directed by Emile de Antonio.
It was nominated for an Academy award for best documentary.
The film, which is in black and white, contains much historical footage and many interviews.
Those interviewed include Harry S. Ashmore, Daniel Berrigan, Philippe Devillers, David Halberstam, Roger Hillsman, Jean Lacouture, Kenneth P. Landon, Thruston B. Morton, Paul Mus, Charlton Osburn, Harrison Salisbury, Ilya Todd, John Toller, David K. Tuck, David Werfel, and John White.
Eighty-year-old Jimmy Mirikitani survived the trauma of WWII internment camps, Hiroshima, and homelessness by creating art. But when 9/11 threatens his life on the New York City streets and a local filmmaker brings him to her home, the two embark on a journey to confront Jimmy's painful past. An intimate exploration of the lingering wounds of war and the healing powers of friendship and art, this documentary won the Audience Award at its premiere in the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.
This documentary shows the routine practices of factory farms and slaughterhouses and explores the conditions endured by animals who are raised for meat, eggs, and milk. All the footage was obtained through investigations at U.S. factory farms and slaughterhouses in recent years.
De par le monde, des millions de personnes sont réduites chaque année au déplacement forcé. Que ce soit aux Maldives, au Brésil ou même plus près de nous, ici, au Canada, les récits troublants de ces êtres humains déracinés se recoupent. Les pressions considérables exercées sur les populations rurales dues à la détérioration de leur milieu vital les éloignent de plus en plus de leur mode de vie.
OilCrash, produced and directed by award-winning European journalists and filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, tells the story of how our civilization’s addiction to oil puts it on a collision course with geology. Compelling, intelligent, and highly entertaining, the film visits with the world’s top experts and comes to a startling, but logical conclusion – our industrial society, built on cheap and readily available oil, must be completely re-imagined and overhauled.
Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil.
But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields.
Narcy, Canada’s infamous Iraqi MC, is hijacking the media to dispel stereotypes
about Arabs through Hip Hop. This video is an insight into the mentality of a talented young Arab who’s struggling to make it in the rap game in a post-9/11 world.
Hala Alsalman is an Iraqi-Canadian freelance reporter and video journalist. After two years of working for Reuters TV out of the Middle East, she’s currently focusing on documentary filmmaking. She’s also a magazine feature contributor for Vice and Dazed and Confused.
Filmmaker Faisal Lutchmedial goes beyond the activist stereotype as he takes a personal journey into his mother’s native country for the first time. A three month visit to Bangladesh becomes a discovery of family and home that runs parallel with his attempt to tackle the complex issue of global trade.
It is the story of a man and a city fighting drugs and addiction. Dean Wilson used to be an IBM salesman. Now he is possible the most outspoken drug addict in Canada. Ann Livingston is the charismatic organizer of Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. She is a nonuser, driven by an impatient spirituality. In 27 cities around the world, safe injection sites have proven to save lives. Together, Ann and Dean lead an unpredictable crew of street addicts in their fight to open North America's first safe injection for drug users in Vancouver.
THE FOREST FOR THE TREES is an intimate look at an unlikely team of young activists and old civil rights workers who come together to battle the U.S. government.
Filmmaker Bernadine Mellis is the daughter of 68-year-old civil rights lawyer Dennis Cunningham. Dennis started out his career representing the Black Panthers and the Weathermen.
Dommages de guerre en temps de paix. Depuis 1990, les Forces canadiennes ne cessent de se déployer en divers endroits de la planète : Golfe Persique, Rwanda, Bosnie, Afghanistan, Cambodge, Haïti, Liban...
Website: www.handsoffvenezuela.org
Directed by Melanie MacDonald and Will Roche
PEACE, PROPAGANDA AND THE PROMISED LAND provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites--oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others--work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported.
Something's happening on the edge of town.
There's a desperate housewife in the parking lot, a musical chorus line mowing the lawn - and a loaded gun in the upstairs closet.
Welcome to Radiant City, an entertaining and startling new film on 21st century suburbanites.
Gary Burns, Canada's king of surreal comedy, joins journalist Jim Brown on an outing to the burbs. Venturing into territory both familiar and foreign, they turn the documentary genre inside out, crafting a vivid account of life in The Late Suburban Age.
With humor, hope and a piece of vinyl siding firmly in hand, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand and co-director Daniel B. Gold travel from Helfand’s hometown to America’s vinyl manufacturing capital and beyond in search of answers about the nature of polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Her parents’ decision to “re-side” their house with this seemingly benign cure-all for many suburban homes turns into a toxic odyssey with twists and turns that most ordinary homeowners would never dare to take.
Can a story change the world?
In the spring of 2003, three young Americans from California left in search of such a story. What they found was a tragedy that disgusted and inspired them.
This film is fast paced, and made for the young and the young at heart. To see Africa through young eyes is funny, heartbreaking, quick and informative all in the same breath. See this film and you will be forever changed.
More than 30,000 people have been killed over the last ten years in Colombia’s bloody civil conflict, in which left-wing guerillas fight against the government and illegal right-wing paramilitary groups. Recently, as guerillas and paramilitaries sought to control marginal city neighborhoods, urban gangs aligned themselves with each side. In this way, the national conflict was translated into a brutal turf war that pitted adjacent barrios against each other.
De par le monde, des millions de personnes sont réduites chaque année au déplacement forcé. Que ce soit aux Maldives, au Brésil ou même plus près de nous, ici, au Canada, les récits troublants de ces êtres humains déracinés se recoupent. Les pressions considérables exercées sur les populations rurales dues à la détérioration de leur milieu vital les éloignent de plus en plus de leur mode de vie.
Dawn Crey. Ramona Wilson. Daleen Kay Bosse. These are just three of the estimated 500 Aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered in Canada over the past thirty years. Directed by acclaimed Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh, Finding Dawn is a compelling documentary that puts a human face to this national tragedy. This is an epic journey into the dark heart of Native women's experience in Canada.
A young girl guides her father through his numbing depression.
Zoe Leigh Hopkins’ short film Prayer for a Good Day premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Her previous film, One-eyed Dogs are Free, was nominated for Best Short at the American Indian Film Festival and received Honorable Mention at the imagineNATIVE Film Festival in 2006.
Ms. Hopkins is currently writing a play for the Children’s Theater in Minneapolis. She is now in development with her first feature Cherry Blossoms, which she workshopped at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program.
An experimental film with rich visual/soundscapes and very little narrative. “a spiritual land claim” tells the story of many dispossessed Indigenous people affected by the external forces of colonization (i.e. inter-generational residential school trauma, lateral violence, white foster homes and addictions).
A thought-provoking and powerful documentary film on the current and historical root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unlike any other film ever produced on the conflict -- 'Occupation 101' presents a comprehensive analysis of the facts and hidden truths surrounding the never ending controversy and dispels many of its long-perceived myths and misconceptions.
FAVELA RISING documents a man and a movement, a city divided and a favela (Brazilian squatter settlement) united. Haunted by the murders of his family and many of his friends, Anderson Sá is a former drug-trafficker who turns social revolutionary in Rio de Janeiro’s most feared slum. Through hip-hop music, the rhythms of the street, and Afro-Brazilian dance he rallies his community to counteract the violent oppression enforced by teenage drug armies and sustained by corrupt police.
