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Interpersonal Relationships (36)
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AccordionMichèle Cournoyer 2004 5 minThis animated short explores the connections between sex, love and technology. A woman connects to the Internet. She not only embraces technology but surrenders to it entirely as she sends her entire body and soul to her electronic lover. In this world of Pandora's boxes, sexual desire and dehumanizing machine intertwine till they're finally and brutally disconnected. -
AnatomyPatrick Bossé 2013 8 minA white room. The aging bodies of actors Gilles Pelletier and Françoise Graton testify to a love that has triumphed over time and engage in a captivating dialogue of desire, defying inertia, old age and death. This short film is a starkly pure evocation of the senses.
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Big bangLori Malépart-Traversy 2022 4 minThis film discusses topics of sex and masturbation; viewer discretion is advised./br> This animated short film recounts a 23-year-old woman’s quest to achieve her first orgasm. Along the way, it takes a sensitive and humorous look at the little-known phenomenon of vaginismus. The result is a captivating tale of exploration, discovery and dildos.
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The Company of StrangersCynthia Scott 1990 1 h 40 minIn this feature film, 7 elderly women find themselves stranded when their bus breaks down in the wilderness. With only their wits, memories and some roasted frogs' legs to sustain them, this remarkable group of strangers share their life stories and turn a potential crisis into a magical time of humour, spirit and camaraderie. Featuring non-professional actors and unscripted dialogue, this film dissolves the barrier between fiction and reality, weaving a heart-warming tale of friendship and courage.
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Deep Inside Clint StarClint Alberta 1998 1 h 28 minTake a hilarious and bittersweet journey into the hearts and minds of some very ordinary, extraordinary young Canadians with this feature-length documentary. The filmmaker, assuming the role of Clint Star, seeks out his far-flung buddies, young Indigenous people like himself. They talk about sex and life, love and abuse, and 500 years of oppression—all with humour, grace and courage.
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EmbracedJustine Vuylsteker 2018 5 minStanding before an open window, a woman gazes at black clouds darkening the horizon. She loves two men—the one who shares her present, and the one who marked her past. Frozen, she struggles against surging memories evoked by objects, the sky—everything. In the clouds, a passionately intertwined couple appears.
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A Feather TaleMichèle Cournoyer 1992 5 minIn this animated short, a woman, taking on her lover's fantasies, adorns herself in her finest feathers and assumes a seductive but demeaning role. Caught up in his own game, the man plays on to the bitter end--a cruel game in which love is stripped of its golden glow, leaving only the naked reality of dependency and desperation.
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First Stories - Hooked Up NDNs OnlineJennifer Dysart 2007 6 minThis short film offers a fresh, inventive look at the Internet and asks us to consider this question: does the Web provide Indigenous people with a sense of community? Single mother Michelle plunges into the often-humorous world of online dating. First Stories is an emerging filmmaker program for Indigenous youth which produced 3 separate collections of short films from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Produced in association with CBC, APTN, SCN, SaskFilm and MANITOBA FILM & SOUND.
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Fair PhyllisBeth Portman 2003 9 minFair Phyllis affirms to all women 'You're not alone!' in the craziness of busy, multi-tasking lives--what with the demands of career, the kids or just trying to get a moment alone with your man. This short animated film delights in celebrating the resiliency and resourcefulness of the female sex. Set in an 18th century pastoral countryside, Fair Phyllis the shepherdess struggles with her chaotic woolly world. Will she find balance or crack under the shear stress of it all?
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The Hook UpMichael V. Smith 2019 6 minThe Hook Up is an experimental doc featuring four gay men from two different generations: two nearing age 70 and two 20-somethings. Striking close-up visuals create a powerful sense of intimacy and connection as the men discuss how hooking up has (and has not) evolved for gay men.
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I've Never Had SexRobert Kennedy 2007 3 minThis short film made with the video camera on a cellphone is part of MobiDOCS: Confessions in a Digital Age. The director asks questions to the participants about their sexual experiences. Based upon the arcade game of the same name in which participants are required to either agree or disagree with the proposition "I've Never Had Sex...."
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I Am GayAjahnis Charley 2020 10 minAfter working abroad for five years, filmmaker Ajahnis Charley returns home to Oshawa, Ontario, in the age of quarantine. In addition to reuniting with his family, he returns with a mission to share some deep personal truths. Surprising conversations ensue with his mother and three siblings creating, in this humorous and heart-wrenching story about our need to seek love and acceptance within our own families.
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I Am Syd StoneDenis Thériault 2020 1 h 21 minWhile shooting a film in a small town, a famous actor puts his personal life and career in jeopardy by starting an intense affair with another man.
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John and MichaelShira Avni 2004 10 minThis animated short pays tribute to two men with Down syndrome who shared an intimate and profoundly loving relationship that deeply affected the filmmaker. Narrator Brian Davis brings the characters to life with great sensitivity.
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Jump, DarlingPhil Connell 2019 1 h 30 min
A rookie drag queen, reeling from a break-up, escapes to the country where he finds his grandmother in steep decline, yet desperate to avoid the local nursing home.
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The KissEva Cvijanovic 2011 1 minA slow, agonizing, juicy exploration of the oldest form of affection.
Produced as part of the 7th edition of the NFB’s Hothouse apprenticeship. -
Le grand serpent du MondeYves Dion 1998 1 h 38 minThis feature drama tells the story of Tom Paradise, a young 40-something refusing to grow up. Behind the wheel of his bus, he drives endlessly through the city dreaming of the landscape of the American West that forever impressed him. In love with freedom and Jack Kerouac's On the Road, he resists all the sensible people who try to persuade him to settle down. For Tom has only one idea in his head: to once again head south, riding the waves of love and fate.
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Love in QuarantineMillefiore Clarkes 2020 10 minWhen COVID protocols impose restrictions on human interaction, Millefiore Clarkes seizes the opportunity to reflect on the nature of love itself, juxtaposing her own existential quest with those of a teenager grappling with identity and self-worth in a time of social distancing, and a woman who finds surprising new romance despite pandemic isolation.
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Men for SaleRodrigue Jean 2009 2 h 24 minIn this feature-length documentary, 11 male sex-trade workers are followed over the course of a year. They share their struggles to survive alcohol and drug-related addictions, abuse and stigmatization – but most of all, their troubled pasts.
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Multiple Choices - Picture PerfectAlison Burns 1995 12 minIt's never easy reconciling fairy tales to reality, especially when the reality is, to say the least, complicated. You know things are tough when young people don't expect a good relationship, let alone a perfect one, because as one young woman puts it, "all good things must come to an end." Participants discuss their expectations of marriage, homosexual relationships, and how the changing roles (and role models) of men and women have affected marital responsibilities.
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Missed ConnectionTabitha Fisher 2011 1 minIn this animated short, a delusional young man spots the girl of his dreams in his favourite café and weaves a self-indulgent fantasy story of their imagined life together. Missed Connection examines our universal desire to connect in a world of beautiful strangers.
Produced as part of the 7th edition of the NFB’s Hothouse apprenticeship. -
ManivaldChintis Lundgren 2017 12 minManivald, a fox, is turning 33. Overeducated, unemployed and generally uninspired, he lives with his overbearing, retired mother and spends his days learning piano while she makes his coffee and washes his socks. It is an easy life, but not a good one. Their unhealthy co-dependence is about to collapse when the washing machine breaks down and Toomas, a sexy and adventurous wolf repairman, arrives to fix it, and them.
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Nose and TinaNorma Bailey 1980 27 minThis short documentary tells the unusual story of Nose and Tina, 2 people in love. He is employed as a brakeman, she as a sex worker. The film captures the domestic details of their life together and documents their hassles with work, money and the law.
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Sext ApesLaurence Vallières 2017 36 sYOUR PHONE IS HAVING MORE SEX THAN YOU. A bleak picture of sex in the digital age.
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The Noise of EnginesPhilippe Grégoire 2021 1 h 19 minAlexandre, an instructor at the Canadian customs college, returns home to his small town after his employer places him on compulsory leave. As he forms a new friendship with a female Icelandic drag racer, he finds himself under surveillance by police investigators trying to get to the bottom of the sexually explicit drawings that have been troubling the town.
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Picture ThisJari Osborne 2017 33 minWhat does it mean to be disabled and desirable?
In Picture This, a new documentary by Jari Osborne, we meet Andrew Gurza, a self-described “queer cripple” who has made it his mission to make sex and disability part of the public discourse.
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PhoebeGeorge Kaczender 1964 27 minA film story exploring the state of mind of a teenage girl when she learns she is pregnant. The film slips in and out of the present, past and future in a way that communicates her feelings in an almost subjective way. Her need to tell her parents, her boyfriend, her school principal, and to find some help in her predicament is the heart of the film.
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Pilots on the Way HomePriit Pärn & Olga Pärn 2014 16 minHaving suffered the loss of their plane, three pilots inexplicably find themselves stranded in the middle of the desert. While following the perilous and unpredictable course that will ultimately lead them home, they fall prey to visions and must confront the siren call of their own strange fantasies.
With Pilots on the Way Home, Priit and Olga Pärn (Divers in the Rain) have created a new, satirical meditation on male-female relations. The film tackles masculinity and the male psyche with the same pointed sense of the absurd that has marked Priit Pärn’s previous films. Pilots on the Way Home is also a journey through time and space, and to the universal sources of artistic eroticism. Olga Pärn is a master of the art of animating sand, giving Priit Pärn’s unique line drawings a warm and subtle texture reminiscent of etching. Her work is perfectly matched to the impassioned beats of this tale. -
PlayhouseLori Malépart-Traversy 2022 3 minThis film discusses topics of sex and masturbation; viewer discretion is advised. How does porn fuel sexual fantasies? For some, the most powerful images are those that flirt with completely unfamiliar situations. This animated short with a magic touch relates one woman’s confessions about her favourite erotic scenarios.
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Rose & VioletClaude Grosch & Luc Otter 2011 26 minThe animated short film Rose & Violet tells the story of two Conjoined twin sisters who are recruited as star acrobats in the world’s biggest circus. They seem bound for glory, but when a new strongman joins the troupe, a conflict turns tragic… Filmmakers Luc Otter and Claude Grosch employ a clever combination of 2D and digital cut-outs and clay animation in their exploration of the circus realm.
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Sexy LaundryIzabela Plucinska 2015 12 minHow can the flames of desire be rekindled after 25 years of married life? Izabela Plucinska’s erotic comedy, made entirely through the use of modelling clay, delves into the private lives of Alice and Henry, a couple in their fifties numbed by routine.
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She and IMarie-Pier Ottawa 2008 6 minThis short film is inspired by a stormy same-sex relationship in the Manawan community of the Atikamekw Nation, which led to a suicide. Since 2004, Wapikoni Mobile has been giving Indigenous youth the opportunity to speak out using video and music. This short film was made with the guidance of the traveling Wapikoni Mobile studios and is part of the 2007 Selection—Wapikoni Mobile DVD.
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Song for CubaTamara Segura 2014 7 minThis short experimental documentary about memory and music follows a young Cuban couple charting a new course for their lives on an island in the North Atlantic. The film features the original music of Patrick Boyle and the songs “Preferi Perderte” by Benny Moré and “Suavecito” by Ignacio Piñeiro.
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Toward IntimacyDebbie McGee 1992 1 h 1 minThis feature documentary follows a number of women with disabilities as they affirm their right to seek, develop and sustain intimate relationships with the partners of their choice. In this moving one-hour film, four disabled women from across Canada share their personal experiences, with particular emphasis on sexuality, self-esteem, stereotyping, and parenting.
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When Shirley Met FlorenceRonit Bezalel 1994 27 minThis short documentary offers an intimate portrait of two women in their mid-sixties—one homosexual, the other heterosexual—whose love for one another and the music they create together transcends differences. Florence and Shirley's lifelong attachment is a heartwarming connection that defies categorization.
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Women and Men UngluedKatherine Gilday 2003 1 h 26 minAt the start of the new millennium, relations between men and women are in turmoil. Traditional marriage is challenged on all fronts. Long-held notions about gender, commitment and courtship have been cast aside. And 'marriageable' people are staying single in record numbers.
Is this an historical blip or a fundamental change in society? Do men and women even need each other anymore? Women and Men Unglued dares to ask these questions.
This provocative documentary takes an uncensored look at single, urban Gen-Xers living on the edge of this social change. Operating in a free-for-all zone where old mating rules don't apply and new ones don't exist, these young urbanites struggle to find intimacy amid chaos.
Against this backdrop, leading experts like Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and Bert Archer take a fresh look at how relations between the sexes are evolving.
