Roz Power

Sons

Set against the backdrop of his son’s first five years of life—from cooing infant to hurricane of a boy—filmmaker Justin Simms looks at modern masculinity through the lens of fatherhood as he asks an increasingly urgent question: How do we teach our boys to be better men?

A Return to Memory

When Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it.

Seguridad

In her feature documentary Seguridad, Newfoundland-based filmmaker Tamara Segura—once named “Cuba’s youngest soldier” in a militia publicity stunt—portrays her troubled relationship with her father in the context of the Cuban Revolution. When Segura accepts a scholarship to study film in Canada, the move offers crucial distance from her alcoholic father. After four years, she returns to Cuba hoping to make amends. But her father’s sudden death just days after her arrival forces Segura to explore his troubled past and the role Cuba’s highly militarized system played in his downfall. Through a series of deeply personal on-camera interviews with her immediate family, Segura unearths long-held secrets that ultimately tell a story of resilience and profound love between family members. Seguridad artfully weaves a lifetime’s worth of still photographs into its intimate narrative, which offers a rare glimpse into the inner lives of Cubans in the post-revolutionary era.

A Quiet Girl

Adopted Montreal filmmaker Adrian Wills discovers, on camera and in real time, the startling truths of his complex beginnings in Newfoundland. Shocking details drive Wills to the core of his birth mother’s resilience, and ultimately his own. In this moving feature documentary that combines 16mm footage and contemporary images with deeply personal conversations, Wills’ voyage transforms from an urgent search for identity into a quest to give a quiet girl her voice.

love, amma

After being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a young mother writes a letter to her daughter about their family’s collective journey to acceptance.

Perfecting the Art of Longing

Cut off from his loved ones due to the strict COVID-19 lockdown at the long-term care facility where he lives, a quadriplegic rabbi is filmed by his daughter while reflecting on love, mortality and longing.

Evan's Drum

For generations, the sound of traditional Inuit drum dancing fell silent in Labrador due to colonization. In the early 21st century, the beat of the drum returned, and with it a renewed sense of pride in Inuit culture. Evan’s Drum tells the story of seven-year-old Evan Winters of Happy Valley-Goose Bay as he learns from his mother, Amy, how to drum dance. Amy hopes that her son will continue this newly reclaimed tradition and help to pass it on to future generations of Inuit. Labrador Inuk filmmaker Ossie Michelin brings us into the home of the Winters-Allen family for an intimate look as the revitalized tradition of drum dancing is once more passed down through the generations. Evan’s Drum provides a window into modern Inuit family life through the story of Evan and his family, who work alongside their community to keep the drumbeat alive.

Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again

After marrying a settler, Mary Two-Axe Earley lost her legal status as a First Nations woman. Dedicating her life to activism, she campaigned to have First Nations women's rights restored and coordinated a movement that continues to this day. Kahnawake filmmaker Courtney Montour honours this inspiring leader while drawing attention to contemporary injustices that remain in this era of truth and reconciliation.

Wintopia

IDFA and Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick had a close relationship for decades. He was a hard worker and often far from home, visiting festivals around the world. In 2013, he died after a short illness. His daughter Mira was left behind with a whole lot of questions, and a box full of videotapes that Wintonick shot for his Utopia project. She resolved to investigate what sort of film he envisaged, and to complete it for him.

Luben & Elena

Deeply rooted in artistic families, young Luben Boykov and Elena Popova escape the repressions of communist Bulgaria and find refuge on the island of Newfoundland in 1990. With their 2-year-old daughter and sixty dollars they begin to build a new life. At the height of what many would define as success, they leap again, understanding that the greatest risk for art, and for love, is taking it for granted.

Radical

Deanne Foley profiles fellow Newfoundlander Mary Walsh, the Great Warrior Queen of Canadian comedy, musing on time wasted as an object of desire and time well spent as the fearless agent of her own destiny. A joyous call to action.

Mabel

Feisty, fiercely independent and firmly rooted in place, 90 year-old Mabel Robinson broke barriers back in the 40s when she became the first woman in Hubbards, Nova Scotia, to launch her own business—a hairdressing salon where she still provides shampoo-n-sets over 70 years later. Weaving animation and archival imagery with intimate and laugh out loud moments in the salon, the film celebrates the power of friendship, doing what you love and staying active. With no desire to retire anytime soon, Mabel gives voice to a generation who are not front and center of cinema or the pop hairstyles of the day, and subtly shifts the lens on our perception of beauty and the elderly.

Imaginary Heroine

This short film pays tribute to actress and comedian Mary Walsh. Layering archival photographs of downtown St. John’s and evocative imagery, it tells the remarkable story of a little girl who grew up next door to her family. Inspired by Mary Walsh’s one woman play Dancing with Rage, the film reveals the heart of the unique characters created by Newfoundland’s grand dame of comedy. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada in co-operation with the National Arts Centre and the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Foundation on the occasion of the 2012 Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.