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The SaddlemakerGrant Crabtree 1961 16 minFrom Alberta's cowboy country, a story of a young girl's first love, a saddle. Every saddle that leaves Felmer Eamor's shop becomes a proud possession. In this film you sympathize with a fourteen-year-old girl's wish to have such a saddle, and the bluff she pulls to get it. -
One Hand ClappingJoan Henson 1972 9 minNoise pollution is a scourge of our time no less than are the visible forms that contaminate our environment. From the jangle of the alarm clock to the din of downtown, noise assails us throughout the day. The way the film depicts this aural enemy provides overpowering, at times amusing, evidence that here, too, the time has come to call a halt.
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A Great Little ArtistMartin Defalco 1973 28 minA fictionalized account of a day in the life of members of an Italian community in Canada.
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The Great Electrical RevolutionLarry Bauman 1990 23 minThe Great Electrical Revolution is a charming story about a family that almost suceeds in toppling the powers that be. Grandad had left Ireland in the twenties, dreaming of a country estate in a land untouched by politics. Instead, he ended up in Moose Jaw, "a crazy town full of rum runners and trainmen." Set in depression-era Saskatchewan, the film recreates a time when families took refuge in the magic world of radio. When Grandad's old Marconi is short-circuited by the stingy power company, so begins "the great electrical revolution," and a good-natured comedy that pits the working class against the capitalists.
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Tic TacMarc Daigle 2008 9 minMarc Daigle is a graduate in animation and graphic technologies from the Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick in Miramichi. He works as a graphic artist, illustrator, Web designer and animator. In 2005 he co-directed the animation Pimp ma botte, a hilarious parody of the TV program Pimp my Ride.
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Double or Nothing: The Rise and Fall of Robert CampeauPaul Cowan 1992 1 h 32 minThis powerful docudrama follows the spectacular life of renegade Canadian business magnate Robert Campeau, whose ill-fated purchase of the Allied and Federated retail empires resulted in a multibillion-dollar debacle and helped bring down the curtain on one of the craziest periods in U.S. financial history. Marcel Sabourin stars as Robert Campeau.
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CimarronesCarlos Ferrand 1982 23 min“This powerful, short fiction film recreates events that took place in Peru in the early 1800s, when a group of cimarrones—runaway slaves—attacked a caravan to free friends who’d been sentenced to death. Several of Peru’s vanguard artists of the early 1980s participated in the making of this film. The Afro-Peruvian leader is played by Amador Ballumbrosio, the elder patriarch of the legendary Ballumbrosio family, and the script was co-written by Enrique Verástegui, the iconic Peruvian poet (of African and Chinese descent) who founded the Movimiento Hora Cero. The film’s music was composed by Carlos Hayre, the great Peruvian musicologist who introduced the use of the cajón (box drum) in creole waltzes and Andean harmonies in modern jazz and bossa nova arrangements.
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The Last GlacierRoger Frappier & Jacques Leduc 1984 1 h 23 minSchefferville, a single-industry town, is closing down because the mine that gave it birth has ceased operation. There is a general exodus. The film singles out Raoul and Carmen, for whom the demise of the town signals the irrevocable breakdown of their marriage. Professional actors mix smoothly with the local population to heighten the documentary aspect of this drama. The resulting docudrama illustrates the vulnerability of the citizens of these artificially created towns. With English sub-titles.
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How They Saw Us: Is It a Woman's World?Ann Pearson 1977 29 minThis film, made especially for television in 1956, embodies the conventional myth that women indirectly exercise power through their ability to manipulate men through sex and marriage.
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The HuntsmanDouglas Jackson 1972 16 minA film adaptation of a short story by Toronto writer David Lewis Stein about a ten-year-old boy who ferrets out golf balls from the rough, then sells his findings to passing golfers. There is an unexpected development when two unscrupulous older boys try to muscle in on his business. A children's film, but one that many adults will enjoy.
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The General ForemanMorten Parker 1958 29 minHere is a classic example of "the man in the middle," subject to pressures from above and below, and divided in loyalty to the enterprise and to the men he supervises.
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The Longer TrailFergus McDonell 1956 30 minA story about a young Indigenous man from a reserve near Calgary and the problems he faces when he finds himself thrust into the world of the white man. Joe Lonecloud contracts tuberculosis and is taken to the Charles Camsell Indian Hospital in Edmonton. There he learns that he will never be able to return to the vigorous activity of the outdoors. In learning a trade and getting a job he encounters prejudice, which makes his adjustment all the more difficult.
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Want a Lift?1945 15 minA rural postman gives a lift to a returning World War II soldier. As they drive from the station to his home, the young man notices all the changes that have taken place during his absence. The film presents farmers' concerns while encouraging the purchase of Victory Bonds as a mean of saving for post-war needs.
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The Way It IsBeverly Shaffer 1982 24 minThis sensitive drama examines the effects of divorce on a family, particularly on a twelve-year-old girl. Although Helen Murray's parents were divorced two years ago, Helen still hopes for a reconciliation. When a visit from her father is cancelled, an emotionally charged confrontation with her mother takes place. Helen admits her anguish over the divorce and realizes that she must learn to accept the situation. An excellent film for both children and adults on the themes of family communications and coping positively with family break-up, The Way It Is can be used for discussion in family-life courses and single-parent groups, and for individual and couples counselling.
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The DowryPeter Pearson 1969 20 minA little drama, almost a love triangle, filmed on the Canadian Atlantic coast, about a fisherman, his girl, and his boat. The boat needs a new engine but the owner lacks the cash. His girl's undertaker brother has money enough if he can be persuaded to lend it. What develops in the film is an object lesson showing that neither a boat nor a girl can be taken too much for granted.
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Jump, DarlingPhil Connell 2019 1 h 30 min
A rookie drag queen, reeling from a break-up, escapes to the country where he finds his grandmother in steep decline, yet desperate to avoid the local nursing home.
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Anger After DeathRick Raxlen 1971 28 minA 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.
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I Am Syd StoneDenis Thériault 2020 1 h 21 minWhile shooting a film in a small town, a famous actor puts his personal life and career in jeopardy by starting an intense affair with another man.
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Beware, Beware, My Beauty FairJean Lafleur & Peter Svatek 1972 28 minAn engaging drama for children by the Children's Theatre, Montréal. On a school auditorium stage, an audience watches the portrayal of the beauty and the beast adventure. But the film audience sees more. Behind the scenes, in the shadows and up dark stairways, another drama develops with suspense to equal the fairy tale's. It is a play within a play, convincingly acted out by a talented group of young thespians.
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I Hear YouKoumbie & Chelsea Innes 2019 1 h 40 min
I Hear You is a non-conforming medical drama about a group of gender oppressed women and non-binary people, who each struggle with sexual health issues, and the newly graduated doctor who believes she can help them as they all navigate the frustrations of the Western medical system and their own personal limitations to find hope and help on the other side.
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Love on WheelsBen Low & Ian Rankin 1979 4 minA love story between an English boy and a French girl that takes place at a roller skating rink.
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The SpecialistDon Arioli & Boris Kolar 1971 9 minAn amusingly drawn cartoon about a highly proficient lady bricklayer, graduate of Specialists' School, whose work takes her high up in the world, and her erstwhile friend, whose equally dedicated professionalism brings him lower. She builds towers of bricks while he tunnels down below ground. What develops in the story involves other unlikely characters, plausible enough in this cartoon context.
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Ozias Leduc... Painter of the Soul's SeasonsMichel Brault 1996 58 minOzias Leduc (1864-1955) was one of Quebec's most important visual artists. Largely self-taught, Leduc's wide-ranging painting, writing and photography have both a symbolic and spiritual dimension. This biography illuminates Leduc's life by drawing on the writings of two of his friends, writer Robert de Roquebrune (1889-1978) and painter Paul-Émile Borduas (1905-1960). Their recollections paint the portrait of an enigmatic and reserved man who summed up his vocation with the words, "The artist's sole mission is to give expression to the Beautiful. The Beautiful as free as space and time."
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Mon oncle Antoine (Dubbed Version)Claude Jutra 1971 1 h 44 minThere was a time when the general store was the crossroads of life, a place where a boy could learn all he needed for the way ahead--especially when his uncle was the storekeeper, and also the undertaker, and the nephew often called upon to lend a hand. This film recalls such a store in a village in the asbestos mining area of Quebec in the early 1940s. The film presents a hundred-and-one vignettes of village life--all the bitter-sweet nostalgia with which a man might remember the events that thrust him into manhood. The action takes place on Christmas Eve--the one time of the year when the mine closed its doors, and the store bustled with humanity. For a few hours the villagers could forget their poverty and converge on the store for gossip and revelry. In the midst of it all was Uncle Antoine, customary ebullience and ribald humour whetted by occasional recourse to the gin bottle, and always somewhere in the background, his nephew Jacques taking it all in. But for Jacques this night was to bring sudden initiation into some of the harsher, cruder realities of life, even acquaintance with tragedy and death. Mon oncle Antoine is about a Quebec that makes no headlines but reflects the whole of life, the ebb and flow of hope and despair that might be in anyone's memory.
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Saskatchewan TravellerDon Haldane 1956 30 minThe film follows a grocery salesman as he calls on merchants in small prairie communities, showing some of the people and problems he encounters. His time-tested techniques are contrasted with those of his brash young understudy.
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Over-DependencyRobert Anderson 1949 32 minThe case history of a man whose life is crippled by behaviour patterns carried over from a too-dependent childhood. Through therapy he comes to understand the causes of his illness and fear.
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MercySam Flamont 2020 1 h 26 minA headstrong, farm boy wants to get back what he loses after landing in prison, only to discover what's on the outside, isn't what he wants at all.
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This Is No Time for RomanceFernand Dansereau 1966 28 minIdle hours at a summer cottage, when her husband is at work and the children busy at play, give a wife time to dream a little and reflect on her life and her marriage. Is it enough? What else might she have made of herself? But then her husband returns and she opts for things as they are. A relaxed drama that has much of the mood of a summer outdoors.
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The Feeling of RejectionRobert Anderson 1947 20 minThe case history of Margaret, a 23-year-old girl who has physical disorders with no physical causes. A psychiatrist shows her the root of her troubles--childhood overprotection and discouragement of her efforts to express herself, resulting in a crippling fear of failure and a complete inability to assert herself. When Margaret understands her problem, she develops new and healthier habits of behaviour.
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Feelings of DepressionStanley Jackson 1950 30 minHow and why feelings of depression carry over from childhood to overshadow adulthood are explained in the case of John Murray, an industrious and conscientious businessman. As his case history unfolds we see how persisting reactions to early emotional problems render him incapable of enjoying a happy, normal life.
