Coming Up for Air

Hopper Stories

Musical and mysterious, Mary Helena Clark’s Palms is a modular, sphinx-like film in four parts, comprised of two hands animating stillness, the repeated approach of headlights, a back-and-forth tennis match, and thoughts that emerge like objects.

In this horrifyingly modern fairytale lurks an online Boogeyman and two 12-year-old girls who would kill for him. The entrance to the internet quickly leads to its darkest basement. How responsible are our children for what they find there?

Three best friends endure heartbreak, humiliation & hangovers to find a date to the wedding of a lifetime.

A dark re-telling of the classic fable 'Little Red Riding Hood' set in the Canadian prairies during the Great Depression.

In the period 1891-1927, Henriette Roland Holst goes through a dramatic development. As an aspiring poet from an affluent bourgeois milieu she throws herself, full with idealism and conviction, into the labour movement. Within the various socialistic parties however, a fierce battle on direction takes place, wherein Henriette has trouble finding her place. After returning disillusioned from a trip to the Soviet Union, she does not feel at home in any leftist party. Later she will recollect on this period in her biography "Het vuur brandde voort" (translation: "The fire rages on"). The film reconstructs this period with the use of old film material combined with texts by Henriette Roland Holst herself: fragments from letters, poems, speeches and books, sparingly supplemented with personal commentary by the filmmaker.

Ping has come from Penang in the north to Kuala Lumpur to work with her aunt. There she meets John, a young man who keeps trying to approach her. Ping feels increasingly attracted to John, and although she has a boyfriend in Penang she is drawn more and more into his world. Ping loses herself in her love and does all she can to keep John.

Three Russian street kids, who live on their wits in a train station, take off to the countryside hoping to make it across the border to a better life in Poland. They are alternately looking for tenderness and pushing it away because they sense that it is a sign of vulnerability they can ill-afford. Kędzierzawska has the rare ability to take the world of children on its own terms. There is not a false note in this dazzlingly beautiful and emotionally involving story of three kids trying to find their path to a new life. - Adelaide Film Festival

As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.

When a tribe of cavewomen imparts cruel justice on one of their own their fate takes a turn for the worst. After discovering and falling in love with the corpse sacrificed by the girl-gang, a lone wandering giant of pre-historic mythos is inspired to homicide. Consequently the cavewomen are menaced by the heartbroken and bloodthirsty cave-brute with a grudge, and the prophetess among them is ignored when she predicts the tragic outcome.

Beth wakes up after a night she can't remember to discover her guitar missing. She'll go through hell to get it back. But, like, after some aspirin.

Over a family beach weekend, a young women grapples with whether to confide in her family about a recent sexual assault.

Set in a games arcade, schoolgirls Pandora and Ria are engrossed in a shoot-em-up. Their jokes turn to jibes and soon insults start to fly. The arcade becomes a surreal place as the girls confront their frustrations with deadly consequences.

A group of teenagers film a live documentary on the Sickhouse legend to millions around the world. Stealth launched on Snapchat and experienced by millions, Sickhouse is a "made for mobile" horror thriller.

When Umi and Dwipa left Indonesia to work in an Ontario greenhouse as part of Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program, they hoped the jobs would provide the opportunity and income for a better life. They didn't expect that fixers and false promises would lead to deception and exploitation. Sadly, their story is not uncommon. Min Sook Lee continues to speak truth to power with her commitment to providing a voice to the silenced, fulfilling documentary's capacity as a powerful tool for social change.

A Puerto Rican saying haunts single women in their 30s: "If such a woman is not married by this time, she must be a slut, a lesbian, or a prude". This is the story of that woman. Gabi Padilla lives a life of pleasure and independence. But after her mother's unexpected death, she is forced to return to her rural hometown—a place where Gabi's sensual flair is not welcome.

An airstrip, a hangar and a classroom somewhere in rural Ghana: This is the place where 18-year-old Lydia and 20-year-old Esther hope to achieve their dream: learning how to fly. They have joined the first aviation school for girls in West Africa. There, an ambitious Englishman wants to train young women from rural areas to become pilots. Yet, during training and everyday life at the Aviation Academy Western ideals collide with African values, and the girls gradually realize, that their dream of flying comes at a price.

A poetic journey about the life and work of Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos.

This documentary presents the passion, the talents, the history, the struggles, and the local and international triumphs of the most renowned fashion designers in Puerto Rico. The history of garment making in Puerto Rico has marked our history, culture, and traditions forever. The exploitative history, as a labor manual industry, which served as the base for what we have today as a fashion industry is also portrayed.

Focuses on children and young adults from disadvantaged communities that learn to play an instrument. Through this learning process, they overcome limitations and assert themselves. This program serves as a prevention tool. The stories of these kids will take us on their personal journey and everyday struggle while they prepare for the big concert.