James Simonee, an Inuit hunter from Pond Inlet, Nunavut, investigates the impacts of one of the largest iron mines in the world on traditional lands near his community. Equipped with his rich cultural knowledge and scientific tools, James embarks on a journey to help his community to take an active role into preserving the local culture and country foods for next generations in the midst of the growing appetite of a mining giant.
Based on True Stories / Events
Ball Lightning
Ball Lightning is the true story of a refugee who fled the personal and
social effects of Soviet-run East Germany after the end of WWII and immigrated to
the United States in the 1960s, told through the eyes of the surrogate daughter she
raised after being forced to give away her own infant daughter as the iron curtain
rose. The film is an intergenerational love story and is dedicated to her lost
daughter, demonstrating that children separated from families because of
war are never forgotten.
Paper Trail
A filmmaker sets out to retrace her family’s journey as boat people refugees to Vancouver. Piecing together the fragments and unspoken memories of her family’s history 45 years in the making, she uncovers the mysteries that brought them to Canada that started with one paper and four names.
The Blueberry Blues
In Lac-Saint-Jean, summer means blueberry season. Once the fields paint themselves blue, fruit gatherers of all kinds rush to pick these precious boreal berries before the first frost. The Blueberry Blues celebrates a territory and the people who return to this hardy little fruit each summer, connecting generations and cultures. Together, like blueberries emerging from the ashes of a forest fire, they learn the power of resilience.
Treasure of the Rice Terraces
Filipino Canadian filmmaker Kent Donguines travels back to the Philippines to reconnect with his roots. In a nation with over 134,000 years of history and centuries of colonization — under Spanish, American, and Japanese rule — Donguines notes a shared feeling of weakened traditional identity among many Filipinos he knows and meets. A vital part of their heritage, the centuries-old practice of tattooing, was banned by colonizers and even shunned by Filipinos.
So He Grabbed the Knife
The boy takes the knife his father once gave him. Did what followed make him a “man”?