Seventeen-year-old Xiaokui has spent her entire life in a small seaside town. A top student with a quiet passion for girl idol groups, she is well known throughout the neighborhood — as is her closest friend, Qiangwei, a brilliant math prodigy who recently transferred back from the city.
At seventeen, Xiaokui’s world is one without romance, without a cellphone — just geography magazines and a giant television screen. In the stillness of her routine life, an unexpected “aurora” quietly descends u
Nominee
Raised by the Canoe
The Terry Lee Canoe Club from Sts’ailes First Nation began as a family-based crew, its history rich with culture and story. Today, a powerful resurgence is underway as the next generation carries the tradition forward. Cathrine and Devin Paul now guide the club, supported by knowledge keepers. Devin builds canoes, recently adding strip canoe building taught by Cathrine’s father, a seventh-generation Sḵwx̱wú7mesh carver. From one generation to the next, the paddle never left our hands.
Dog Days of Summer
For these metalheads, the first steps into adulthood are driven by a dream that will break them before it builds them.
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.
INSIDER
A treasure hunt through memory and self leads the panda to embrace the long-forgotten version of himself.
A Priest Walks into a Bar
When Caleb runs from his shame, it is to the local tavern. Drinking alone, he is surprised to be joined by the last person he expected.