Rita Shelton Deverell : Reine des abeilles

A tribute to an astonishing legacy and a rallying cry for a new generation, director Sara Elgamal’s Queen Bee brings the remarkable work of broadcaster, actor, and thinker Dr. Rita Shelton Deverell into focus. Cinematically shot and with striking use of archives, the film features a monologue from Deverell’s one woman play, Smoked Glass Ceiling, and offers an expansive vision for change.

This documentary presents two young women from Halifax who are organizing rock concerts to raise money for the group Eastcoast Against Racism. Bronwen and Yaffa believe that the universal language of music will help unite the community. At the same time, they struggle to renew their friendship with Scott, a former Ku Klux Klan member. This moving film is set against a vibrant soundtrack of punk and rap music.

Peeling back the layers of her grandmother's life, filmmaker Linda Ohama discovers a painful, buried past in this feature-length documentary. Asayo Murakami, 103 years old, recalls life in Japan, her arrival in Canada as a "picture bride," her determination to marry a man of her choice, the bombing of Hiroshima and the forced relocation of her family during WWII. Beautifully rendered dramatic sequences are merged with an exquisite collection of memories, feelings, images and voices. Culminating in an emotional reunion with a long-lost daughter, this film is a personal reflection of Japanese-Canadian history and a testament to one woman's endurance and spirit.

Paraskeva Clark, artist, socialist, feminist, is her own woman at her own cost. This film is a cameo of an irascible and oftentimes touching artist whose work has won her a place in exhibitions and private collections. Born in Russia in 1898, she eventually married a Canadian and moved to Toronto. Because her canvases reflect a strong social conscience, she had to struggle hard to earn a place in the nation's ultra-conservative galleries.

This short sensory film explores the internal process of Alexina Louie, whose unique sound has established her as one of Canada’s most performed and highly regarded composers.

A portrait of Jean Bessie Lumb, a Chinese-Canadian woman. Mrs. Lumb talks candidly about the prejudice she felt during her childhood in Vancouver, her arranged marriage, her occupation, raising children, and intermarriage.

A portrait of Mrs. Helen Law, a Chinese immigrant to Canada, as witnessed through the eyes of her son, a first-generation Canadian.

This documentary short is a portrait of Miyuki Tanobe, a Japanese painter who has chosen to make Québec her home. She works in the Nihonga style, applying centuries-old techniques to scenes drawn directly from the working-class neighborhoods of Montréal. The film records the progression of one of her paintings from preliminary sketch to completion.

This short documentary profiles Sophie Wollock and the newspaper she founded for the western suburbs of Montreal in l963, The Suburban. A weekly paper distributed free to some 45,000 homes, most of them anglophone, The Suburban became famous for the strongly worded editorials written by Wollock, mainly on the subject of Québec nationalism. The film looks at the paper, then under the guidance of her son, and sums up some of Wollock's more impassioned editorials.

Interweaving poetry, painting, photography, music and sculpture, this feature documentary is an innovative look at the lives and work of Canadian men and women artists of Italian origin. Broaching issues of identity and culture, the film explores the relationship between the immigrant experience and the creative process.

This documentary follows 2 women whose meeting pieces together both halves of a story: that of slave and slave owner. When Dr. Ruth Whitehead meets graduate student Carmelita Robertson, who had come to do research at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax, the women realize both their ancestors come from South Carolina, and that their names sound shudderingly familiar. Embarking on a journey to Charleston in search of their connection, Ruth and Carmelita encounter a modern South where the Klan is on trial for burning black churches and where they must come to terms with the thunderous cruelty of the past.