Une sagesse ordinaire

Michelle Smith is a Franco-Manitoban with a passion for arts and culture who puts her talents and people skills to work for Francophone arts organizations in her province, so that its language and community may endure and thrive.

Undertakers are anything but gloomy; they’re funny, generous and dedicated. We would gladly go on vacation with them, but sadly, they never have any dead time.

This documentary focuses on the Yukon River Quest, the world's longest annual canoe and kayak race. Athletes come from around the world to test their endurance, racing day and night along 740 km of rugged river shoreline. The film chronicles the experiences of the all-female 2006 Paddlers Abreast team. By following them from the moment they climb into their boat in Whitehorse to the cheers that greet them in Dawson City, the film tells an exhilarating story of a group of women who have faced death and understand how precious life is.

Shot at the Pierre Boucher Hospital in Montreal, this film takes us into the emergency room to see how our healthcare system is holding up. What it reveals is a powerful indictment of management that sees only the bottom line while human lives are at stake.

When Dr. Mary Percy left civilized England for the wilds of northern Alberta in 1929, the clock seemed to turn back a century. Battle River Prairie had no roads, no electricity, no telegraph, no services. But blackflies were plentiful, and so was snow. Dr. Percy became the first and only doctor in Canada's last homesteading area. In winter, her eyelashes froze to her glasses. In summer, she sometimes had to be fished out of rivers when her horse lost its footing. English sidewalks were only a genteel memory. Mary Percy planned to spend only a year in Alberta--until romance, in the form of Frank Jackson, came striding through her examining room. Sixty-five years later, she is still there. Articulate, witty and outspoken at 90 years of age, the doctor is a gifted storyteller, recalling harrowing experiences as a practitioner of frontier medicine. With the nearest hospital days away, she often had to improvise--sometimes operating on her kitchen table. As a pioneer and community builder living "off the map," Dr. Mary Percy Jackson brings history to life. The film evokes the essence of the rugged times she has lived through. "People these days would call it a challenge," she says. "I thought it was hilarious."

On August 31, 1995, tragedy struck the Guerrette family when Mona, a mother of two, died from breast cancer at age 42, leaving behind a husband and their daughters, Mylène and Marie-France. But she also left behind a stirring farewell message that would serve as a testament to her life.

In 1980, Linda M. was the subject of a film about prostitution directed by Norma Bailey (Nose and Tina). It's 16 years later, and Linda renews her relationship with the filmmaker, inviting her back into her life. Now in rehab, Linda introduces her family and various boyfriends in a funny, sometimes upsetting, but always riveting account of day-to-day life.

In a moving conversation with Dr. Balfour M. Mount, friend, colleague and treating physician, cancer victim Jean Cameron, a one-time volunteer social worker in the Palliative Care Unit of Montréal's Royal Victoria hospital, discusses how she has come to terms with her own illness and the perspective it has given her on the meaning of life. What she has to say is relevant to all. The depth of her insight and the grace of her being leave viewers moved and open to thinking more carefully about the meaning of their own lives.

In this feature-length documentary by Alanis Obomsawin, it's the summer of 2000 and the country watches in disbelief as federal fisheries wage war on the Mi'kmaq fishermen of Burnt Church, New Brunswick. Why would officials of the Canadian government attack citizens for exercising rights that had been affirmed by the highest court in the land? Casting her cinematic and intellectual nets into history to provide context, Obomsawin delineates the complex roots of the conflict with passion and clarity, building a persuasive defence of the Mi'kmaq position.