Events

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.