Tu as crié LET ME GO

This gripping documentary takes a powerful look at the lives of people with substance use disorder in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Filmmaker Veronica Alice Mannix follows Constable Al Arsenault and six other police officers on their daily beat, documenting their unique relationships with people who speak candidly about their painful past experiences, their drug addiction, and life on the street.

Drugs. They sneak into your life, into your veins. You wake up and you're all alone in the depths. But the Earth keeps turning. Since 2004, the travelling studios of Wapikoni Mobile have enabled Quebec First Nations youth to express themselves through videos and music. This short film was made with the guidance of these travelling studios and is part of the 2008 selection.

This documentary offers a compassionate, open-minded look at LSD and how it fits into our world. Long before Timothy Leary urged a generation to "tune in, turn on and drop out," the drug was hailed as a way to treat forms of addiction and mental illness. At the same time, it was being touted as a powerful tool for mental exploration and self-understanding. Featuring interviews with LSD pioneers, beautiful music and stunning cinematography, this is much more than a simple chronicle of LSD's early days. It's an alternative way of looking at the drug... and our world.

This feature documentary is a portrait of the downtown Toronto neighbourhood of Dundas and Sherbourne, where the gap between rich and poor is growing wide. There, middle-class homeowners, angry radicals, desperate drug addicts and people simply looking for a place to lay their head are embattled in a bitter struggle for space. Angel, a prostitute and drug addict, dodges the law. Bed-and-breakfast owner Renée rails against the sex and drug trade. Community organizer John Clarke advocates direct action in defence of the poor. And at the eye of this storm is Reverend Jeannie Loughrey, whose drop-in centre provides much-needed help for the poor, yet homeowners accuse the centre of harbouring criminals and are lobbying to shut it down. Contains coarse language and scenes of drug use.

Illuminating a new paradigm for domestic-violence prevention, A Better Man offers a fresh and nuanced look at the healing and revelation that can happen for everyone involved when men take responsibility for their abuse. It also empowers audience members to play new roles in challenging domestic violence, whether it’s in their own relationships or as part of a broader movement for social change.

To Learn more about A Better Man and access additional resources, visit A Better Man project

This feature film documents the rape and eventual suicide of Suzanne, a nurse whose physical and emotional health deteriorates beyond repair as a result of the violence inflicted on her. Images of ritual and mass rape reinforce the horror of this act of domination. In this docudrama drawn from case histories, the filmmaker explores social attitudes that cause women to feel guilty for being raped. It touches upon the physical, emotional, spiritual and legal aspects of this crime.

In this feature-length documentary, photographer Nance Ackerman describes the havoc prescription painkiller OxyContin wreaked in the already weakened Cape Breton town of Glace Bay. The film guides us through a culture of economic and social depression where we encounter men and women at different stages of dependency. Demystifying the world of the addict while showing us the complex social nexus that led to such despair, Cottonland emphasizes the importance of a collective approach to tackling addiction.

In this cinema vérité documentary, director Rosie Dransfeld captures the gritty and dangerous world of Edmonton's sex trade workers where, in a post-Pickton era, women now voluntarily provide police with DNA samples for future postmortem identification.

This short film is a telling portrait of the discourse about and treatment of alcohol addiction in the middle of the 20th century. In a fictional setting, the film examines the insecurities and inner motivations that cause the protagonist to lean on alcohol. His job and home life are threatened by his addiction, and the doctor to whom he finally turns explains the medical and other resources available to him.

Acclaimed Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh brings us a compelling documentary that puts a human face on a national tragedy – the epidemic of missing or murdered Indigenous women in Canada. The film takes a journey into the heart of Indigenous women's experience, from Vancouver's skid row, down the Highway of Tears in northern BC, and on to Saskatoon, where the murders and disappearances of these women remain unsolved.

One year after the tragedy that took the lives of fourteen female students, Montreal’s École Polytechnique has returned to something resembling normalcy. Nathalie Provost is a survivor of the shooting at the engineering school. Today, with friends, she opens up. About the tragedy, about feminism. About racism and sexism. About the fact that society has difficulty accepting difference. And, above all, about life, which must go on beyond December 6.