Claude Cardinal

Acting Blind

This touching documentary follows a cast of blind and visually impaired actors as they prepare Dancing to Beethoven, a play about blindness. The film takes us deep into the lives of the actors. We hear stories of their shock and disbelief at first losing sight and of their struggles coping with a life without it. We hear them talk about grieving and pining for the visual world. They tell the moving story of how this play is itself a victory, a type of salvation, for each of them. By opening night, at the renowned Place des Arts in Montreal, they are a close-knit cast, well-honed and ready to step out of the wings and into the light.

In The Shadow of Gold Mountain

Filmmaker Karen Cho travels from Montreal to Vancouver to uncover stories from the last survivors of the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act, a set of laws imposed to single out the Chinese as unwanted immigrants to Canada from 1885 to 1947. Through a combination of history, poetry and raw emotion, this documentary sheds light on an era that shaped the identity of generations.

Inuuvunga: I Am Inuk, I Am Alive

In this feature-length documentary, 8 Inuit teens with cameras offer a vibrant and contemporary view of life in Canada's North. They also use their newly acquired film skills to confront a broad range of issues, from the widening communication gap between youth and their elders to the loss of their peers to suicide. In Inuktitut with English subtitles.

Beyond Borders: Arab Feminists Talk About Their Lives... East and West

In the Arab world, women are fighting a two-front war against repressive internal constraints and intrusive Western interference. In this program, a feminist delegation composed of author Nawal Saadawi and other renowned activists from the Middle East and North Africa gathers at the UN, on college campuses, and in church basements to speak out about deterioration of women's rights in the Arab states in an effort to heighten awareness of the Arab feminist struggle for equality--and the effects of U.S. foreign policy on their efforts.

Baseball Girls

This feature documentary uses animation, archival stills and live-action footage to detail the history of women's participation in the largely male-dominated world of baseball and softball. Zany and affectionate, it features 7-year-olds learning the rules and skills of the game and 50-year-olds hitting home runs, from the early days of the Bloomer Girls to the heyday of the Colorado Silver Bullets.