Ozias Leduc... Painter of the Soul's Seasons

The Games included many sports seen in Olympic competition, plus others--for example, pirautaqturniq, the Inuit skill of hitting an object with a ten meter-long sled dog whip. This film captures the all-out participation in the week-long events hosted by Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon, with competitors from all over the Arctic including Alaska, and with observers from the Soviet Union.

In this short film, sculptor and textile artist Kai Chan shares his artistic philosophy of economy and repetition with young artists who build extraordinary, complex 3D structures using simple materials and basic techniques. Part of the I Can Make Art ...series.

This short documentary showcases the work Paul Kane painted in the Canadian northwest in the mid-1800s. Travelling overland west to the Pacific in the mid-1800s, Kane immortalized the area’s great Indigenous Peoples, Chiefs, ceremonies, war parties, buffalo hunts, rapids and waterfalls. In this film, his canvases are projected with lighting that brings to life every glowing detail.

This short documentary focuses on prairie sculptor Joe Fafard. If there's one thing Joe knows, it's cows. He knows the way they tuck in their forelegs to lie down to ruminate and the way a calf romps in the barnyard. He also knows his friends and neighbours in the farming community of Pense, Saskatchewan—and he sculpts them all in clay, as eloquent and quirky miniatures. Joe's work has been exhibited throughout Canada as well as in Paris and New York, and this film offers a glimpse into his process, his aesthetic, and the charming prairie community in which he lives.

This short documentary is a portrait of Frederick Varley, Canadian painter and member of the Group of Seven. In the film, Varley returns to his studio in Toronto after a sketching trip. The camera moves about the studio selecting examples of his canvases and watches him as he begins a new painting.

This full-length documentary examines the work of Krzysztof Wodiczko, an artist who has taken his art out of museums to project it onto the sides of buildings. The film explores Wodiczko’s philosophy of art as social contract and shows examples of his provocative work, which has lit up walls from London's Trafalgar Square to Zion Square in Jerusalem.

This documentary short is a portrait of Canadian photographer William Notman. Photography was still in its infancy when he opened his first studio in Montreal in the late 1850s. He rapidly turned his art, and a budding technology, into a highly successful business. Within 5 years he was appointed Photographer to the Queen. Not content with doing mere portraiture, he saw photography as a means of documenting history. With the use of props in his studio, composite photographs, and calling on his background as a trained artist, Notman immortalized the people and places of Canada.

Set against a background of her paintings and the Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, landscapes they depict, this short documentary is a portrait of the life and work of one of Canada's foremost primitive painters, Maud Lewis. Emerging from her youth crippled with arthritis, Lewis escaped into her painting at the age of 30. She had never seen a work of art and had never attended an art class but her paintings captured the simple strength, beauty and happiness of the world she saw - a world without shadows.

This short documentary is a portrait of Andrew Qappik, a world-renowned Inuit printmaker from Pangnirtung, Nunavut. Originally inspired by images in the comic books he read as a child, Andrew now finds his subjects in the stories, traditions and day-to-day events of his world.

In I Can Make Art Like Andrew Qappik, he captivates his student audience by creating a soapstone relief print before their very eyes. Then it's the kids' turn. They explore Andrew's symbolic imagery - and their own - as they each create a self-portrait relief point.

The paintings of Jean-Paul Riopelle are known around the world. But the painter himself remains private, inaccessible. This documentary attempts to learn more about the man behind the artist, the creative genius behind the work. As we follow him in his day-to-day activities, we see him working in his studio, relaxing with his friends, attending an exhibition of his paintings, and hunting and fishing in the heart of the Quebec wilderness--a source of deep and continuing inspiration for him.

Alex Colville is recognized as one of Canada's most important artists. His realist works hang in major collections across the country and abroad. This production looks at his early years in Amherst, at university and his experiences as a war artist during the Second World War. Many of his paintings are shown and Colville talks about his work and the role of the artist in society. This filmstrip shows, as well, the influences on Colville's paintings.