KOROMOUSSO: Big Sister

Between March and October 2000, millions of people around the world took to the streets to denounce poverty and violence against women. The historic World March of Women was a bold initiative of the Québec Federation of Women and represented a turning point in global solidarity.

Director Sophie Bissonnette invited five filmmakers from around the world to cover the march. She also asked each one to film an innovative project. In Senegal a community battles female genital mutilation through education. In Australia a women's circus teaches survivors of sexual assault to become skilled performers. In India a group of low-caste women mediate domestic disputes in informal women's courts. Native women in Ecuador offer leadership training programs to create women leaders. In the United States, Linda Carney describes why she founded Survival Inc. for poor women in Boston: this wealthy city refused her and her son welfare benefits unless she quit her minimum-wage job.

Set against the backdrop of a song, A Score for Women's Voices ends at the UN, where women deliver 5 million cards signed during the marches. Their goal? To change the world!

Some subtitles.

This short documentary offers an Indigenous perspective on the devastating experience of searching for a loved one who has disappeared. Volunteer activist Kyle Kematch and award-winning writer Katherena Vermette have both survived this heartbreak and share their histories with each other and the audience. While their stories are different, they both exemplify the beauty, grace, resilience, and activism born out of the need to do something.

Into the Light features the liberating life stories and powerful words of inspiring Quebec women of African origin who’ve regained control over their lives after suffering from domestic violence. The film transcends prejudice and breaks the silence, pulling back the curtain on a poorly understood, hidden world, while testifying to the tremendous power that comes from overcoming isolation and accepting one’s self. It’s a luminous dive into the quest for personal healing and universal humanity. This is Togo-born director Gentille M. Assih’s third documentary.

Consult the mini-lesson to find activities designed to help teachers lead discussions in the classroom.

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Cut off from his loved ones due to the pandemic lockdown, a quadriplegic rabbi in a long-term-care facility is filmed remotely by his daughter. Offering powerful meditations on love and hope, Perfecting the Art of Longing shows us what it means to be alive in a state of profound isolation.

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

In 1937, tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were exterminated by the Dominican army on the basis of anti-black racism. Fast-forward to 2013: the Dominican Republic’s Supreme Court stripped the citizenship of anyone with Haitian parents, retroactive to 1929, rendering more than 200,000 people stateless. Director Michèle Stephenson’s new documentary follows the grassroots campaign of a young attorney named Rosa Iris, as she challenges electoral corruption and fights to protect the right to citizenship for all people.

Celebrate Black Canadian cinema with the NFB. Explore our collection of films from Black filmmakers across Canada.

Danielle Sturk tackles the thorny issue of sexual violence against teens by boldly asking: Why? Young men, witnesses to the prevailing culture, and young women survivors of sexual assault share their personal reflections in the hopes of sparking the dialogue needed to end gender-based violence. Because things only change when people start talking and taking action.

The Perfect Story offers a riveting, intimate look at the ethical and moral challenges sparked by the relationship between a foreign correspondent and a young Somali refugee. By revealing the boundaries of journalism and filmmaking, the film questions what stories are told, why, and who gets to tell them.

In To Kill a Tiger, Ranjit, a farmer in Jharkhand, India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the survivor of sexual assault. In India, where a rape is reported every 20 minutes and conviction rates are less than 30 percent, Ranjit’s decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.

Raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank while her mother was in prison, Walaa dreams of becoming a policewoman in the Palestinian Security Forces (PSF). Despite discouragement from her family, even her beloved brother Mohammed, Walaa applies and gets in.  But her own rebellious behaviour and complicated relationship with her mother are challenging, as are the circumstances under which she lives.

Following Walaa from 15-21, with an intimate POV, What Walaa Wants is the compelling story of a defiant young girl navigating formidable obstacles, learning which rules to break and follow, and disproving the negative predictions from her surroundings and the world at large.

This short documentary tells the intensely personal story of Namrata Gill – one of the many real-life inspirations for Deepa Mehta’s Heaven on Earth – in her own words. After six years, Gill courageously leaves an abusive relationship and launches a surprising new career.