Genres: documentary

  • No Sad Songs

    This is the director’s cut of the first Canadian film on the subject of AIDS. In 1985-86 it was featured in festivals and theatres around the world. “No Sad Songs” attracted much critical attention for its sardonic dramatic performances which are interwoven throughout the documentary footage. The film centres on Jim Black, 37, and his views on the premature death in store for him. Catherine Hunt, who has a brother in the U.S. with the illness, speaks with remarkable emotion of the values such a crisis brings out in families and friends. An important film to document the Toronto gay…

  • Nocturne

    A train passes by, a boy with a sparkler in his hand leads us into the world of night. A dark, haunting portrait of the urban landscape in a nocturnal fog. “An impressionistic portrait of Montreal in a nocturnal fog that is simultaneously beautiful and foreboding.” – John Dippong, Vancouver International Film Festival “A painterly vision of what happens in the city at night – beautiful and poetic.” – Stuart Poyntz, Street-Level Film Festival

  • Now That We Are Persons

    Until 1929, Canadian women were told that they couldn’t be senators. Our Constitution, the British North American Act, (BNA) said that only qualified “persons” could be appointed. The government of the day understood that to mean men only. So, in 1927, five Albertan women challenged this definition of “persons” in court. On October 18, 1929, the British Privy Council, then the highest court of appeal in Canada, ruled that the word “persons” could include both men and women. With this new historical interpretation, women won the right to be eligible for the Canadian senate.

  • ?O, Zoo! (The Making of a Fiction Film)

    Music by Tucker Zimmerman. “Philip Hoffman’s ‘?O, Zoo! (The Making of a Fiction Film)’ uses a diary format to skirt along the edge of someone else’s filmed narrative (Peter Greenaway’s ‘A Zed & Two Noughts’), and to trace the anatomy of pure image-making. ‘Pure’ is both the right and the wrong word: Hoffman is a man addicted to the hermetic thisness of filmed images, and plagued by the suspicion that these images, far from being pure, are really scabs torn away from the sores of the world. Found footage shot by his grandfather (a newsreel cameraman) is the starting point…

  • On Her Baldness

    “On Her Baldness” is a documentary about women who have lost their hair due to illness or who have shaved their heads by choice. Focusing on women whose baldness has forced them to confront issues of appearance, self-image and sexuality, this film challenges viewers to question and confront their own prejudices regarding the true nature of beauty and femininity.

  • Opus 1 No 1

    This film, in Sonata form, traces the development and final performance of a Beethoven chamber piece by a trio of very gifted young musicians.

  • Opus 2

    “Opus 2” is an intimate and exciting film portrait of three very gifted young musicians – violinist Barry Shiffman, 15, pianist Yuval Fichman, 17, and cellist Wendy Morton, 18 – who form a chamber music trio under the guidance of noted teacher and music coach, Mildred Kenton. The film is a sequel to “Opus 1 No 1” and follows the three musicians on a rigourous journey through the prestigious Canadian Music Competitions, as they progress from the regional preliminaries to the gruelling national finals. Along the way, the film explores their very specialized world, offering insights into its many pressures,…

  • Out In the Garden

    Set in and around the house and garden of a middle-aged upstate New York academic, Grenier’s intimate experimental documentary portrait explores, in an innovative form, the thoughts and feelings of one man dealing with AIDS. Awards: Michael Moore Award, Best Documentary, 16th Atlanta Film & Video Festival 1992; Cash Award at the 1992 Edison Black Maria Film & Video Festival; Cash Award at the 23rd Sinking Creek Film Celebration Part of the TALKING PORTRAITS series.

  • Painting with Light (Leach)

    The craft and art of stained glass is presented in an entertaining cinematic style. From the early stages of design through the choice and cutting of glass to the glazing and cleaning of the finished panel, all are detailed through the expression of artist Robert Jekyll.

  • Panama, The

    “The Panama” chronicles the Chan family of Victoria, B.C. as it evolved from its first days in Canada when the patriarch Chan Dun, at the age of twelve, landed in Victoria in 1890. From this auspicious occasion, a family of eight sons and four daughters would eventually center around the Panama café, a western-style eatery specializing in liver and onions and apple pie to the working class of the city. Located on Government Street by 1930, The Panama café is a story of one of the oldest Chinese Canadian families. It describes its experience during the depression, the war years…