Douglas Kiefer

Hidden Fears

A widowed woman is being stalked by her husband's murderers.

Between Two Worlds

This feature film is a documentary portrait of Joseph Idlout, a man who was once the world's most famous Inuit. Unknown to most Canadians today, Idlout was the subject of many films and books, and one of the Inuit hunters pictured for many years on the back of Canada's $2 bill. In this film Idlout's son, Peter Paniloo, takes us on a journey through his father's life - that of a man caught "between two worlds."

The Day They Came to Arrest the Book

A high school is rocked by a contentious debate over whether or not "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" should be removed from its library for language concerns.

My Pet Monster

Synder, the historian who has spent many years trying to unlock the powers of the statue, wishes to capture Max for validation of his life's work.

Unfinished Business

Seventeen year old Izzy Marks lives in Toronto with her divorced mother and finds her life boring and directionless. Meant to be a sequel to Don Owen's acclaimed 1964 film "Nobody Waved Good-bye", "Unfinished Business" looks at life two decades later for Peter and Julie's (Peter Kastner and Julie Biggs) daughter Isabelle "Izzy" Marks (Isabelle Mejias). Curious, funny and intelligent, 17 year old Izzy feels the frustrations of her limiting environment and the pull of a more exciting, larger world. She meets passionate anarchist wannabe Jessie 'Fixit' (Peter Spence) and is quickly drawn into his free living alternative lifestyle. Much to the displeasure of her once free-thinking parents and friends.

Standing Alone

Pete Standing Alone is a Blood Indian who, as a young man, was more at home in the White man's culture than his own. Confronted with the realization that his children knew very little about their origins, he became determined to pass down to them the customs and traditions of his ancestors. This film is the powerful biographical study of a 25-year span in Pete's life, from his early days as an oil-rig roughneck, rodeo rider and cowboy, to the present as an Indian concerned with preserving his tribe's spiritual heritage in the face of an energy-oriented industrial age.

Kate and Anna McGarrigle

A short documentary about singers Kate and Anna McGarrigle made by animator Caroline Leaf.

Has Anybody Here Seen Canada?

Through rare film footage and interviews with some of the pioneers who made film history, this documentary traces the history of filmmaking in Canada from 1939-1953. It covers the establishment of the National Film Board in 1939; the war years; Canada's first Oscar; and John Grierson's sudden demise as Canada's driving force in the industry. We witness the struggles of the private film producers, the development of the film industry in Québec, and the emergence of the documentary. Above all, the film asks whether the alternating fortunes of the Canadian film industry, in the face of an overwhelming American presence, reflect the attitudes of the Canadian people towards themselves and their culture.

Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed

Bureaucracy shapes our lives and guides us from the cradle to the grave. This documentary lays bare the idiosyncrasies of bureaucracy, whether in Canada, Austria, Hungary, the Vatican or the Virgin Islands. It also attempts to make the functioning of the public service more comprehensible. The absurdities of bureaucratic behaviour are exposed with humour and irreverence.

A Pinto for the Prince

In 1977, Prince Charles was inducted as honorary chief of the Blood Indians on their reserve in southwestern Alberta. The ceremony, conducted in the great Circle of the Sun Dance, commemorated the centennial anniversary of the original signing of Treaty 7 by Queen Victoria.

Meditation in Motion

A short lyrical document about an ancient Oriental discipline, this film moves from the streets of China, where the people practice Tai-Chi daily, to North America, where the same movements are executed by a solitary figure in a park.

Small Is Beautiful: Impressions of Fritz Schumacher

This film is a short documentary portrait of economist, technologist and lecturer Fritz Schumacher. Up to age 45, Schumacher was dedicated to economic growth. Then he came to believe that the modern technological explosion had grown out of all proportion to human need. Author of Small Is Beautiful - A Study of Economics as if People Mattered and founder of the London-based Intermediate Technology Development Group, he championed the cause of "appropriate" technology. The film introduces us to this gentle revolutionary a few months before his death.

Flora: Scenes from a Leadership Convention

This feature documentary offers an incisive look at Canadian politics at the 1976 Progressive Conservative Party leadership convention. Cape Bretoner Flora MacDonald is campaigning for the Party’s leadership, the first woman to do so. We follow MacDonald behind the scenes as she works with her staff to prepare policy, speeches, and strategies to win the race. We also get a glimpse of MacDonald’s sprightly and upbeat attitude as she puts her best foot forward in front of voters, media, and the Party’s elite.

One Man

In this socially conscious drama, a TV journalist begins investigating a large factory that has been threatening the health of the children who live in the town's poorest, most polluted section. Because of his investigation, he and his family are threatened by company thugs. He gets no help from his TV station as they are loathe to tangle with big business.

Games of the XXI Olympiad

Edited from almost 100 km of film footage shot during the Games, this feature documentary is a breathtaking portrait of the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Much more than a simple record of the Games, the film approaches each event with the intention of revealing the athlete - whether winner or loser - as a unique individual.

The Heatwave Lasted Four Days

A TV news cameraman's appetite for fine wine, fast cars and beautiful women draws him into the grip of a heroin smuggler.

Musicanada

With no commentary other than the music and words of the performers themselves, this fast-moving film presents the grandest Canadian concert of them all. Here, the performers include both the great and the unknown from across the country, the musical styles span the centuries, and the artists are involved in all stages of musicianship: learning, teaching, conducting, recording, performing. Among the film's many stars are Edith Butler, Beau Dommage, Maureen Forrester, Glenn Gould, Paul Horn, the Huggett Family, and Gilles Vigneault.

This Riel Business

This documentary short is a cinematic recording of Tales from a Prairie Drifter, a stage comedy about the North-West Resistance during the opening of the Canadian West. Highlighting the roles of Louis Riel, the Resistance leader, prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald and General Middleton, who was sent to quell the uprising, the play defines the First nations and Métis cause more succinctly than many history books. Here, the play is performed by the Regina Globe Theatre before and Indigineous audience of First Nations and Métis, whose reactions are recorded.

Starblanket

At twenty-six, Noel Starblanket was one of the youngest Indigenous chiefs in North America--twice elected chief of the Starblanket Reserve, and also elected vice-president of all-Saskatchewan Indigenous organization. His great-grandfather's advice was to "learn the wit and cunning of the White man." That he did. Here he is seen in action, a chief with a briefcase, working with government officials for grants, running for public office, talking down his opposition, and solving the domestic problems of his reserve.

The Sunny Munchy Crunchy Natural Food Shop

This short documentary takes you on a tour of one of Montreal's first health food stores. The camera scans shelves stocked with all manner of natural foods to which nary an additive has been added: soybean and sesame seed products, wild honey, and even eggs from hens fed on blackstrap molasses. But the real eye-openers are in what you hear between the aisles, from the store's owner and his customers.

Downhill

Actor Michael Kane stars in this brief winter romance filmed partly in the dazzling outdoor splendor of a Laurentian ski resort and partly in the cardiac wing of a city hospital. It is the story of a man's second youth, the time in his middle years when he overstrains his passion for life and love. A stolen weekend, and the inevitable reckoning; between these two, the hills themselves serve the drama like members of the cast.

Cowboy and Indian

This film goes no farther west than Toronto. The Indian is Robert Markle, from a family of Mohawk steel workers. The cowboy is his longtime art associate, Gordon Rayner. Both are Toronto artists and art teachers, sharing also an interest in jazz: Rayner plays the drums, Markle the electric piano. This film is a study of their lifestyle, their mutual interests and their friendship.

Ballet Adagio

A slow-motion study by Norman McLaren of the pas-de-deux adagio, one of the most exacting and difficult dances of classical ballet. A ballet originally choreographed by the Russian ballet master Asaf Messerer is performed for this film by the internationally known Canadian pair, David and Anna Marie Holmes, to the music of Albinoni’s Adagio. A film to heighten the aesthetic appreciation of classical ballet and to afford observation of the technique and mechanics of the adagio movements.

Anger After Death

A film mingling documentary and dramatic elements to portray the effects of the threat of chemical and biological warfare on the contemporary mentality. The chemist who manufactures the secret weapons, the scientist who comments on them with complete detachment, the soldier of the First World War, killed by poison gas, who returns to life to discover the manner of his dying--all make their claims on the audience in an arresting, provocative way.

Atonement

Canadian wildlife specialists work to preserve and nurture the creatures that remain in our wilderness areas - species such as the whooping crane, prairie falcons, bighorn sheep, bison, polar bears, and grizzlies.

Prologue

This film tells the story of a young Montrealer who edits an underground newspaper with help from his female friend and a draft dodger from the United States. Two rival philosophies of dissenting youth become evident in the choices they make: militant protest vs. communal retreat. Including some seminal archival footage of a speech by legendary anti-war activist Abbie Hoffman and bloody rioting during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

Powwow at Duck Lake

This powerful short documentary showing Indigenous youth resistance and emerging voices that will continue to define the landscape of Indigenous cultural and political activism for the next generation. Members of the National Youth Council, including Duke Redbird and Harold Cardinal, have a powerful exchange with a hostile white priest about the failures of the education system in relation to Indigenous people. The group tackles issues including segregated residential schools, the denial of citizenship rights, loss of language, and mass incarceration, many of which persist or continue to be stumbling blocks in the relationship between Indigenous people and the Government of Canada today.