Film Categories: Race + Ethnicity

  • Behind the Walls and Under the Stairs

    The spiders are organizing themselves…one day soon they’ll take over. “Phantasmic photograms crawl across the emulsion, their flow arrested via re-photography, these marks look like multi-hued spiders crawling towards a new berth. Again and again. Falling from the horizon of the frame line in warm hues of red and purple and brown. A movie of theme and variations, noting the small changes of tone and texture and opacity. Every day I don’t have a new best friend, a new job, a new home. I live within the frame, trying to find freedom in my restrictions, my life.” – Mike Hoolboom,…

  • Schogt, Elida: A Film Trilogy

    Newly available on DVD, this trilogy from award-winning filmmaker Elida Schogt examines Holocaust memory, the family and the role of photography in history. (For purchase only. For rentals, see individual titles.) ZYKLON PORTRAIT “Zyklon Portrait” is about Zyklon B – the pesticide transformed into a genocidal weapon by the Nazis in the 1940s. It is also an elegy for the filmmaker’s grandparents; after years of silence, the filmmaker’s mother finally talks about her parents’ horrific fate. A Holocaust film without Holocaust imagery, “Zyklon Portrait “ uses family photographs, underwater photography and hand-painted imagery to draw a personal story out of…

  • Happy Hookers

    “Happy Hookers” is an independent documentary exploring the secret world of male sex workers in Bombay, India, where homosexuality is still a criminal offence. Following the lives of three young men who live as sex workers, the film considers social taboos regarding HIV, homosexuality and the commodification of sex, while also shedding light on the differences between the spaces occupied by male and female sex workers.

  • 50/fifty

    “50/fifty“ uses old home movies and hand-processed film to pay homage to the memory of the filmmaker’s father, who passed away when she was young.

  • Rock Garden: a love story

    An allegory about love, loneliness and the healing power of acceptance, “Rock Garden: a love story” is the tale of two neighbors who struggle and toil with everyday existence and how the most unlikely of objects changes them both. Described as “absolutely beautiful” by director Atom Egoyan, “Rock Garden: a love story” is seemingly a tale about two warring neighbours, but reveals itself as a social commentary on sexual and gender identity. Its unexpected plot twist illustrates how in the most unlikely of ways, we can be freed from our selves. With no dialogue, the film features deeply textured music…

  • Attack

    Steve, the leader of a local gang apprehends a neo-Nazi skinhead in a park,because he has attacked two of his black teenage friends in a nearby alley. The police arrive and take statements from Steve and the two teenage boys. Malcolm, the skinhead, lies unconscious. As we are taken backwards through the story we realise that perhaps the boys aren’t telling the whole truth and things may not be as ‘black & white’ as they appear.

  • Devotion

    “Devotion: a story about Ogawa Productions” is an 82-minute documentary of an important Japanese post-war documentary collective that made significant films of social struggle and village life. This investigative documentary situates the revolutionary lifestyle and films of Ogawa Productions within the framework of the global student movement of the New Left in the mid-’60s and the emerging documentary movement in Japan. In-depth stories from the collective members who contributed to this unique film making process are examined from a variety of perspectives and understandings. OSHIMA Nagisa, HARA Kazuo and HANEDA Sumiko, well-known film directors, present their personal recollections of this…

  • Dance of Life, The

    “The Dance of Life” features the extended monologue of a first-generation Canadian woman. This stream-of-consciousness reflects a discourse of existence fractured among the many “characters” seen in the film. A dizzying exploration of many people in the process of becoming many other people. Inevitably this cyclical dance, this tautology of existence, leads us to “la vie c’est la mort.”

  • Byron Chief-Moon: Grey Horse Rider

    Byron Chief-Moon is a multi-talented actor, stuntman, dancer, choreographer, playwright, founder of the Coyote Arts Percussive Performance Association, and member of the Blackfoot Confederacy, member of the Blood Band. Through his art and his life, Chief-Moon’s story is one of cultural survival. Themes of his dance creations begin with his people’s traditional stories, his attachment with the land and his community, as well as the inner conflict he faces in existing within the Aboriginal culture and the wider community. He is ensuring the preservation of his native language through its incorporation in his work. As well, he’s firm in his…

  • Tide Marks

    Ten years after the triumph over Apartheid in South Africa, four former activists deal with the consequences of their dedication to human dignity with humour, frustration and hope. In this poignant and educational documentary, filmmaker Sarah Abbott presents issues that have been largely ignored by mainstream media, as its focus on the brutalities of apartheid shifted to the successes of transforming a nation. “Tide Marks” is an evocative collection of interviews, memories, observational footage, found photographs and South African music that re-visits apartheid history and looks at aspects of its present-day aftermath. Abbott’s intimate engagement with Cape Town residents reveals…