Genre: Documentary
Surviving Progress
Directors
Harold Crooks, Mathieu Roy
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Literary Adaptation, Social Justice & Politics
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
eOne
Strand, Under the Dark Cloth
Director
John Walker
Writer
Seaton Findlay
Producer
John Walker
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Arts and Culture, Biography, History
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
John Walker Productions
River of My Dreams: A Portrait of Gordon Pinsent
Director
Brigitte Berman
Cast
Norman Jewison
Producers
Brigitte Berman, Daniel Pellerin, Victor Solnicki
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Arts and Culture, Biography, Female Filmmaker
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
CBC Documentary Channel
The Pass System
Director
Alex Williams
Writer
Alex Williams
Cast
Tantoo Cardinal (Cree/Métis)
Genre
Documentary
Interests
BIPOC Stories, Discrimination
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
Vtape
Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies
Director
Larry Weinstein
Weinstein has received three Gemini awards for his work, including Best Direction for Beethoven’s Hair. Weinstein also directed the docs Mulroney: The Opera, The Devil’s Horn, Leslie Caron: The Reluctant Star, and Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas, and co-directed Our Man In Tehran. His latest, Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies, premiered at Hot Docs 2019.
Writers
David Mortin, Andrew Edmonds
Cast
Marilyn Monroe, Rachael Leigh Cook, Freddie Prinze Jr, Charles Chaplin
Producers
Bernd Wilting, Aeschylus Poulos, Sonya Di Rienzo, Matthias von der Heide
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Arts and Culture, Cult & Offbeat Cinema, Global Experiences, Social Justice & Politics
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
TVO
- Own Voice
The World is Bright
Director
Ying Wang
Writer
Ying Wang
Producers
Jordan Paterson, Ying Wang, Su Jian Ping
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Asian Filmmaker, BIPOC Stories, Family Relationships, Female Filmmaker, Newcomer Stories, Social Justice & Politics
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
Moving Images Distribution
Prière pour une mitaine perdue (Prayer for a Lost Mitten)
Director
Jean-François Lesage
Writer
Jean-François Lesage
Cast
Marie Murphy
Genre
Documentary
Interest
Arts and Culture
Original Language
French
Canadian Distributor
Les Films du 3 mars
Pieces of a Woman
Director
Kornel Mundruczo
Writer
Kata Weber
Cast
Vanessa Kirby, Shia LaBeouf, Ellen Burstyn, Iliza Shlesinger
Producer
Aaron Ryder
Genres
Documentary, Drama
Interests
Family Relationships, Social Justice & Politics, Strong Female Leads
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
Creative Wealth Media Finance
Transformer
Director
Michael Del Monte
Cast
Janae Marie Kroczaleski
Producers
Lyndon Hall, Tad Munnings
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Biography, LGBTQ2S+, Social Justice & Politics, Sports, Strong Female Leads
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
levelFILM
- Own Voice
Legend of a Warrior
Director
Corey Lee
Writer
Corey Lee
Cast
Billy Chow, Corey Lee, Frank Pang Lee
Producers
Susan Bristow, Bonnie Thompson, Corey Lee
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Family Relationships, Newcomer Stories, Sports
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
National Film Board (NFB)
Derby Crazy Love
Directors
Justine Pimlott, Maya Gallus
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Female Filmmaker, Sports, Strong Female Leads
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
Red Queen Productions
- Own Voice
China Heavyweight
Director
Yung Chang
Cast
Zongli He, Yunfei Miao, Moxiang Qi
Producers
Bob Moore, Qi Zhao, Yi Chan, Peter Wintonick
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Global Experiences, Sports
Original Language
Other Language
Canadian Distributor
Eye Steel Film
Gambling, Gods and LSD
Director
Peter Mettler
Writers
Alexandra Gill, Peter Mettler
Cast
Peter Mettler
Producers
Atom Egoyan, Peter Mettler, Alexandra Gill, Ingrid Veninger, Cornelia Seitler
Genres
Documentary, Experimental
Interests
Arts and Culture, Global Experiences
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
Grimthorpe Film
Ski Bums
Director
John Zaritsky
Producer
Silva Basmajian
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Arts and Culture, Sports
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
National Film Board (NFB)
Mystic Ball
Director
Greg Hamilton
Genre
Documentary
Interest
Sports
Original Languages
English, Other Language
Canadian Distributor
Black Rice Productions
Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire
Dallaire attempted to stop the killing by alerting the world through the United Nations and the international media. Though his attempts were unsuccessful, Dallaire emerged as a hero. Ten years later, Dallaire returns to Rwanda to personally commemorate the anniversary of that holocaust.
Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005.
“Dallaire is not only the protagonist of Shake Hands with the Devil, he is a compelling reason to see it.” — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
Director
Peter Raymont
Raymont has produced and directed over 100 documentaries, which have earned more than 50 international awards. His producing credits include West Wind: The Vision of Tom Thomson, Guantanamo’s Child: Omar Khadr and Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band. He also directed the doc Margaret Atwood: A Word after a Word after a Word is Power, and produced Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On, which premiered at TIFF 2022.
Writer
Roméo Dallaire
Producers
Linda Lee Tracey, Peter Raymont
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Biography, Discrimination, Global Experiences, History, Literary Adaptation, Social Justice & Politics
Original Language
English
Canadian Distributor
White Pine Pictures
Sharkwater
Filmed in gorgeous high-definition video, Sharkwater takes you into shark-filled oceans, exposing the true nature of sharks as well as the way human interference has turned this noble predator into prey. Stewart teams up with a rogue environmentalist group on a breathtaking adventure to battle shark poachers around the globe. His incredible journey will make you see sharks in a whole new light.
Winner of many Audience and Critics Choice awards at film festivals around the world.
Director
Rob Stewart
Stewart was an award-winning journalist and filmmaker, whose docs Sharkwater and Revolution earned awards at festivals worldwide. A tireless activist, Stewart was credited with saving a third of the world’s sharks. He tragically passed away in 2017, while filming Sharkwater: Extinction, which was completed posthumously and premiered at TIFF 2018.
Writer
Rob Stewart
Producers
Brian Stewart, Rob Stewart
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Environment, Social Justice & Politics
Original Language
English
Language Version
FR Dub
Stories We Tell
As Polley interrogates each of her subjects in turn, contradictory accounts emerge, and longstanding efforts to hide some painful truths eventually become futile.
The “stories we tell” — that all families tell in one way or another — turn out to obscure as much as they reveal, and the whole idea of the purpose of narrative is called into question in a way that is both fascinating and poignant.
Director
Sarah Polley
Polley won a screenwriting Oscar nomination for Away From Her, and directed Take This Waltz and Stories We Tell. She wrote and produced Alias Grace, a miniseries based on Margaret Atwood’s novel, which premiered at TIFF 2017. In 2022 she published the essay collection Run Toward the Danger. Her most recent feature, an adaptation of Miriam Toews’ Women Talking, premiered at TIFF 2022.
Writer
Sarah Polley
Producers
Silvia Basmajian, Anita Lee
Genre
Documentary
Interests
Biography, Female Filmmaker, History
Original Language
English
Language Version
FR Subtitles
Canadian Distributor
Mongrel Media
- Own Voice
Totem: The Return of the G’psgolox Pole
In 1929, the Haisla people of British Columbia returned from a fishing trip to find their tribe’s nine-metre mortuary pole — otherwise known as the G’psgolox — missing, severed at the base. The pole’s fate was a mystery for over 60 years until it surfaced in a Stockholm museum, where members of the Haisla Nation journeyed to in order to get it back in 1991.
Mixing interviews, location photography and awesome footage of Haisla carvers, this unique documentary takes an incredible story and weaves in important commentary on the issue of cultural appropriation and art history.
Director
Gil Cardinal (Métis)
Cardinal was a groundbreaking filmmaker whose work embodied the complex history of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples. His body of work includes NFB documentaries such as Foster Child and The Spirit Within alongside television series such as North of 60, Big Bear, Chiefs, and Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis. In 1997, he received the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Film and Television, and in 2003, he won the Alanis Obomsawin Best Documentary Award at the ImagineNATIVE Film Festival for Totem: the Return of the G’psgolox Pole.
Writer
Gil Cardinal (Métis)
Producers
Jerry Krepakevich, Graydon McCrea, Bonnie Thompson
Genre
Documentary
Interests
BIPOC Stories, Environment, Global Experiences, History, Indigenous Filmmaker, Social Justice & Politics
Original Language
English
Language Versions
EN CC, FR Subtitles
Canadian Distributor
National Film Board (NFB)
- Own Voice
Trick or Treaty?
One of the masters of Canadian documentary cinema, Alanis Obomsawin has spent decades chronicling the injustices visited on First Nations communities, creating a remarkable body of work. In her latest film, she digs into the difficult history of Treaty 9, the infamous 1905 agreement in which First Nations communities allegedly relinquished their sovereignty over their traditional lands.
Setting the film against the recent resurgence of First Nations activism (Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike and the Idle No More movement), Obomsawin interviews legal, historical and cultural experts — as well as people whose ancestors were present when the treaty was signed — to explore some fundamental questions about Canada’s relationship with our First Nations.
“Obomsawin’s documentaries inform, inspire and shock us. Trick or Treaty? is no different.” — Nadya Domingo, Toronto Film Scene
Director
Alanis Obomsawin (Abenaki)
Legendary Abenaki filmmaker Obomsawin has made over 50 documentaries on issues affecting Indigenous peoples in Canada, including Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, Trick or Treaty?, Is the Crown at War with Us?, Our People Will Be Healed and Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger. Her most recent film is the short documentary Honour to Senator Murray Sinclair. Next, she is set to appear in an episode of Marie Clements' Bones of Crows: The Series.
Writer
Alanis Obomsawin (Abenaki)
Producers
Annette Clarke, Alanis Obomsawin (Abenaki)
Genre
Documentary
Interests
BIPOC Stories, Environment, Female Filmmaker, Indigenous Filmmaker, Social Justice & Politics
Original Language
English
Language Versions
EN CC, FR Subtitles
Canadian Distributor
National Film Board (NFB)