Here at Home: Honestly Painful

Lise has been living with schizophrenia for years, some of them spent in dangerous housing conditions. Now she’s selling her paintings in a Moncton marketplace and celebrating her new home.

This short film is a chapter from Here At Home, a web documentary about mental health and homelessness that takes us inside the Mental Health Commission of Canada's At Home pilot project.

Lukas makes his rounds as a caseworker, delivering meds, gifts and good cheer to participants while exposing the dark history behind the addiction issues that plague Winnipeg's Aboriginal homeless population.

This short film is a chapter from Here At Home, a web documentary about mental health and homelessness that takes us inside the Mental Health Commission of Canada's At Home pilot project.

After years on the edge, Hector now has a place to live, a job and a beloved dog. Shuttling farm hands to work, he remembers the life he lost and worries about his homeless son.

This short film is a chapter from Here At Home, a web documentary about mental health and homelessness that takes us inside the Mental Health Commission of Canada's At Home pilot project.

On the verge of being evicted, Theresa heads out to work panhandling on a familiar patch of concrete in downtown Toronto. Confiding in her caseworker, Bouchra, Theresa blames herself for her eviction and delivers a startling revelation.

This short film is a chapter from Here At Home, a web documentary about mental health and homelessness that takes us inside the Mental Health Commission of Canada's At Home pilot project.

After more than 20 years on the street, James has doubts about living indoors. Struggling to master the appliances in his new apartment, he reflects upon pizza, cockroaches and the syndromes of modern industrial society.

This short film is a chapter from Here At Home, a web documentary about mental health and homelessness that takes us inside the Mental Health Commission of Canada's At Home pilot project.

For every housed participant, another remains homeless. Wandering the empty corridors of his shelter, Valère reveals his struggle with HIV/AIDS, and his longing for a home of his own.

This short film is a chapter from Here At Home, a web documentary about mental health and homelessness that takes us inside the Mental Health Commission of Canada's At Home pilot project.

Determined to go to NYC to reconnect with a famous actor, Simon is radically altering his life. He’s quit hard drugs, prostitution and crime and is moving into a new apartment.

This short film is a chapter from Here At Home, a web documentary about mental health and homelessness that takes us inside the Mental Health Commission of Canada's At Home pilot project.

Mr. MadDogg gives the lowdown on drugs, friendship and the street as he whips up breakfast for 100 fellow residents at the Bosman Hotel.

This short film is a chapter from Here At Home, a web documentary about mental health and homelessness that takes us inside the Mental Health Commission of Canada's At Home pilot project.

Covering everything from bug bites to welding to drug use, Dr. Plante counsels participants with a mixture of tough love and compassion in this glimpse of her at work.

This short film is a chapter from Here At Home, a web documentary about mental health and homelessness that takes us inside the Mental Health Commission of Canada's At Home pilot project.

In the chaos of the post-modern world we still need the village psychic. Throughout the Maritime provinces of eastern Canada, neighbourhood fortune-tellers and village wise-women are alive and well, and their practices have survived intact. These women often work at the kitchen table--and today, they're more sought-after than ever. They're seemingly average people who don't put on airs and affectations, but who go about doing some rather extraordinary things with very little fuss. Using herbal preparations, spells, astrology, or tools as simple as tea leaves and tap water, they look into the past, present and future -- and offer tips on coping with what life throws our way. It's a fascinating tradition--and director Donna Davies has been immersed in it since childhood. Join her in The Kitchen Goddess as she takes you on a personal visit into the worlds of seven Maritime psychics.

Thursday, shot from filmmaker Galen Johnson's high-rise apartment during COVID-19 “lockdown” in Winnipeg, captures people going about their daily routines in the city's eerily empty streets, yards and parking lots, on their balconies and on the riverbanks. The extreme distance and the diminutive scale of humans is paired with sound close-ups—a combination that embodies the strange, heightened intensity of feeling of the time, knowing an era-defining tragedy is happening yet being so physically removed.