Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World

A true Canadian iconoclast, acclaimed transgender country/electro-pop artist Rae Spoon revisits the stretches of rural Alberta that once constituted “home” and confronts memories of growing up queer in an abusive, evangelical household.

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Marc-André Leclerc, an exceptional climber, has made solo his religion and ice his homeland. When filmmaker Peter Mortimer begins his film, he places his camera at the base of a British Columbia cliff and waits patiently for the star climber to come down to answer his questions. Marc André, a little uncomfortable, prefers to return to the depths of the forest where he lives in a tent with his girlfriend Brette Harrington. In the heart of winter, Peter films vertiginous solos on fragile ice. He tries to make appointments with the climber who is never there and does not seem really concerned by this camera pointed at him "For me, it would not be a solo if there was someone else" . Marc-André is thus, the "pure light" of the mountaineers of his time, which marvel Barry Blanchard, Alex Honnold or Reinhold Messner, interviewed in the film. An event film for an extraordinary character.

A history of the nation's first transcontinental railway accompanies a steam-train ride through the Canadian Rockies.

Kanada, ve stopách zlatokopů

This Traveltalk series short takes the viewer to Quebec, the city that was called the "New France".

The mood and scenery of the world's second largest country have been captured in this informative and superbly filmed program. Visit the major natural and cultural attractions of the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, Alberta, the Rockies, British Columbia and the far north. Explore the wondrous diversity of Canada's people, wildlife and landscape.

This travelogue of Canada's Jasper National Park starts with a visit to the totem pole in the town, then to Lac Beauvert and the park's lodge and bungalows, where more than 600 guests enjoy golf, swimming and scenery. Within the park are the Canadian Rockies' highest summit, largest glaciers, greatest ice fields, and deepest canyons. After a lesson about feeding bears, we tour the vast park: Pyramid Lake and Pyramid Mountain, Mount Edith Cavell and Angel Glacier, a horse trail overlooking the Athabasca River, Athabasca Falls, the Great Colombia Ice Field, Athabasca Glacier and the special cars that bring tourists, and finally Maligne Lake, a fisherman's paradise.

This Traveltalk series entry visits the easternmost area of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. We learn that although the island was originally settled by the French, most of the island's inhabitants are of Scottish descent. We are also told that the main industries of the island are agriculture, fishing, and mining. After a look at Bras d'Or Lake, we visit the village of Baddeck. Near there is the grave of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. The last stop is the industrial city of Sydney, home of steel plants, foundries, and coal mines.

We begin at the train station near Montana's Glacier National Park, where Blackfeet Indians meet the arriving tourists. Glacier Park, an off-screen narrator tells us, has the remnants of 60 glaciers, from three ice ages. We visit the lodge, built in Swiss style, where college students dressed in Swiss garb do the serving at the restaurant. We watch Indian dancing and a ceremony. After views of lakes, mountains, and trails in the park, it's north to Canada's Waterton Lakes, a vacation spot for Canadian and U.S. families.

Polar Life’s novelty was its theatre, with the audience seated on a central rotating turntable in the middle of eleven fixed screens. Viewers have described the intricate juxtaposition of screen images and narration and the complex relationship created between moving spectators and multiple screens. Documentation images and scripts of the bilingual narration by Lise Payette and Patrick Watson show elaborate temporal and spatial representations of the Arctic and Antarctic regions: the Inuit in daily activities in the Canadian North; other northern peoples of Alaska, Lapland, and Siberia; and settlers from the South, scientists, explorers, and other inhabitants of the landscape, including reindeer, bears, and birds. Archival film footage of early northern explorers, combined with newly shot documentary footage, was edited across the various screens to create spatial relationships that are sometimes coherent, sometimes fragmented.

From challah to immigration to the wandering Jew, Ma Nishma Manitoba is a mid-length documentary that explores Manitoban Jewish stories of identity and history. Filmmakers Johanna and Sara put their own experiences in local context by chatting with several Jewish Manitobans, including a rabbi, politician, artist, Israeli immigrant, and others. Archival materials, illustrations, and stop animations connect history with present-day opinions and stories, as Sara and Johanna explore what being Jewish in Manitoba means to them and others.

Manufacturing the Threat

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

The Continuum Project follows some of the world's best climbing talent around the globe to document bold new routes and daring repeats on ice, rock, and in the alpine. The film focuses on these climbers' drive to explore, their passion for the mountains and the climbing lifestyles.

The Canadian Coast Range is a humbling place. The range dwarfs both exceptionally large human beings and egos with its foreboding size. Norseman Productions follows Dave Treadway and Henrik Windstedt as they push into the range on snowmobiles in pursuit of big lines the Coast Range is never short of.

"The World's Greatest Train Ride" video series takes you on the train adventure of a lifetime! Filled with all the breathtaking excitement of authentic train travel, this exhilarating journey through Canada takes you on a complete rail tour. Your train adventure begins in Toronto with a visit to the luxurious Royal York Hotel. You'll then travel to historic Winnipeg, gateway to the golden western plain, on your way to Saskatoon, where you'll gaze in delight at the thrilling mountain vistas, gorgeous waterfalls and fascinating animal life. You'll travel aboard the "Canadian" all the way to Vancouver and the Pacific Ocean - and see all of Canada's amazing sights, including Lake Louise and the truly spectacular Banff National Park!

A promotional video produced by the Alberta government in 1975, "The time of the tar sands", featuring Gordon Pinsent. credit: Archives of Alberta.

In present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, economically depressed towns turn themselves into tourist destinations in order to survive—deliberately forming their own cultural narratives. Centering on four different locations, The Stone Speakers interrogates a nation’s contradictory memories. Made with subtlety and tactful distance, director Igor Drljaca’s film reveals the traumatic consequences of being a country that is stuck in a postwar identity crisis.

This film recreates the true story of Tom Sukanen, an eccentric Finnish immigrant who homesteaded in Saskatchewan in the 1920s and 1930s. Sukanen spent ten years building and moving overland a huge iron ship that was to carry him back to his native Finland. The ship never reached water.