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Caribbean, Central and South American Origins (16)

  • Solid Ground
    Solid Ground
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    Beatriz Carvalho 2022 2 min
    Solid Ground is a poetic and sound-rich travelogue—a personal journal that reveals the thoughts of an expatriate returning to her native land. Employing the rarely used monotype animation technique, Solid Groundreflects the personal experience of discovering different lands and feeling as though one were simultaneously at home and elsewhere. A film from the Alambic collection, a creative lab by the NFB’s French Program Animation Studio that’s designed for emerging filmmakers.
  • Handmade Mountain
    Handmade Mountain
    Michèle Pearson Clarke 2019 6 min
    In Handmade Mountain, Michèle Pearson Clarke explores the emotional fallout of being both early to gay marriage and early to gay divorce. Fifteen years after same-sex marriage became legal, she and friends reflect on its personal and political meaning in this experimental film.
  • Journey to Justice
    Journey to Justice
    Roger McTair 2000 47 min
    This documentary pays tribute to a group of Canadians who took racism to court. They are Canada's unsung heroes in the fight for Black civil rights. Focusing on the 1930s to the 1950s, this film documents the struggle of 6 people who refused to accept inequality. Featured here, among others, are Viola Desmond, a woman who insisted on keeping her seat at the Roseland movie theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in 1946 rather than moving to the section normally reserved for the city's Black population, and Fred Christie, who took his case to the Supreme Court after being denied service at a Montreal tavern in 1936. These brave pioneers helped secure justice for all Canadians. Their stories deserve to be told.
  • Joe
    Joe
    Jill Haras 2002 8 min
    This animated short tells the story of Seraphim "Joe" Fortes, one of Vancouver's most beloved citizens. Born in the West Indies, Joe Fortes swam in English Bay for over than 30 years. A self-appointed lifeguard at first, he became so famous that the city of Vancouver finally rewarded him with a salary for doing what he loved best. He taught thousands of people to swim and saved over a hundred lives. Yet there were some who did not respect him because of his skin colour. Through his determination, kindness and love for children, Joe helped shift attitudes.
  • Jump-up - Caribbean Carnival in Canada
    Jump-up - Caribbean Carnival in Canada
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    Claire Helman 1995 10 min
    A multicultural story that centers on the growing friendship of a newly-arrived West Indian child and a Canadian girl as they both discover how the black community organizes a yearly festival featuring costumes, music and a little history. This filmstrip introduces a festive occasion celebrated by the black community in several cities, sensitizes children to the feelings of those who have recently arrived in Canada, and fosters appreciation of the culture of others.
  • Life Lessons at the Lula Lounge
    Life Lessons at the Lula Lounge
    Kyle Stone 2004 11 min
    This short documentary is about a young Cuban band that has recently moved to Canada. The members spend their days learning English and their nights playing and rehearsing their own blend of Cuban salsa music in clubs. The film follows the musicians, capturing their constant discussions about the political situation at home and the problems of citizen engagement in both communist Cuba and democratic Canada.
  • The Magic of Anansi
    The Magic of Anansi
    Jamie Mason 2001 6 min
    This animated short tells the story of Anansi, a little spider who is tired of being snubbed by other the jungle animals, especially Mr. Tiger. As Anansi plots and schemes to change things, he realizes he can't gain respect by putting others down.

    Part of the Talespinners collection, which uses vibrant animation to bring popular children’s stories from a wide range of cultural communities to the screen.
  • MacPherson
    MacPherson
    Martine Chartrand 2012 10 min
    This animated film by Martine Chartrand (Black Soul) recounts the friendship between a young Félix Leclerc and Frank Randolph Macpherson, a Jamaican chemical engineer and university graduate who worked for a pulp and paper company. An inveterate jazz fan, Macpherson inspired Leclerc, who wrote a song about the log drives and entitled it “MacPherson” in honour of his friend. Paint-on-glass animation shot with a 35mm camera.
  • A Memory Forgotten: A Generation Sacrificed
    A Memory Forgotten: A Generation Sacrificed
    Martine Duviella 2008 23 min
    This short documentary is a portrait of Martine Duviella, whose parents were forced to flee Haiti during the Duvalier regime. Here, Duviella recounts the story of her activist father and through him seeks to retrieve the forgotten past of a generation that sacrificed itself trying to free Haiti. In French with English subtitles.
  • Ninth Floor
    Ninth Floor
    Mina Shum 2015 1 h 21 min
    Director Mina Shum makes her foray into feature documentary by reopening the file on a watershed moment in Canadian race relations – the infamous Sir George Williams Riot. Over four decades after a group of Caribbean students accused their professor of racism, triggering an explosive student uprising, Shum locates the protagonists and listens as they set the record straight, trying to make peace with the past.
  • No Time to Stop
    No Time to Stop
    Helene Klodawsky 1990 29 min
    Kwai Fong Lai is from Hong Kong, Alberta Onyejekwe from Ghana, and Angela Williams from Jamaica. They are immigrants to Canada, visible minorities, and women, a combination designed to make their lives difficult. While Canadian society has yet to accustom itself to its immigrant reality, these strong and resilient women manage to adapt and survive. At home and at work, they speak candidly about the conditions that shape their lives.
  • The Right Candidate for Rosedale
    The Right Candidate for Rosedale
    Bonnie Sherr Klein  &  Anne Henderson 1979 32 min
    This short documentary records Black activist Anne Cools’ 1978 run for the Liberal Party nomination in Rosedale, one of Toronto's largest and socially most diverse federal ridings. The film records her bid for political power, and explains the nomination contest, a basic step in the Canadian electoral process. Because she was competing against the Liberal Party's preferred candidate, the nomination battle in Rosedale turned into one of the most innovative and fascinating in the history of Canadian politics.
  • Steel Blues
    Steel Blues
    Jorge Fajardo 1976 34 min
    Pablo, Chilean emigrant, ex-professor, seeks work in a Montréal steel mill. Cut off from family, country and profession, he is baffled by a language he doesn't speak and a job he doesn't know. The film reproduces with accuracy and sensitivity his efforts to adjust to a new and bewildering world.
  • Seguridad
    Seguridad
    Tamara Segura 2024 1 h 16 min
    In Seguridad, Cuba’s “youngest soldier” uncovers a family secret that compels her to explore her father’s troubled past and its connection to the Cuban Revolution.
  • Sanctuary
    Sanctuary
    Jamie Escallon-Buraglia 2005 12 min
    A program for emerging filmmakers to make high impact, low budget docs. Sanctuary tells the story of Sergio Loreto, who has lived in Canada for 18 years, but is now seeking sanctuary in a Toronto church so not be deported to Guatemala.
  • Unarmed Verses
    Unarmed Verses
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    Charles Officer 2016 1 h 25 min
    This feature documentary presents a thoughtful and vivid portrait of a community facing imposed relocation. At the centre of the story is a remarkably astute and luminous 12-year-old black girl whose poignant observations about life, the soul, and the power of art give voice to those rarely heard in society. Unarmed Verses is a cinematic rendering of our universal need for self-expression and belonging.