A grieving boy and his mother embark on a trip to see the stars at the largest dark sky preserve in the world. Unable to contain his excitement, 10-year-old Elijah wanders away from his mother and loses his way in the vast wilderness of Wood Buffalo National Park. As he struggles to find his way back, Elijah encounters an extraordinary creature in a similar circumstance. The unlikely pair forms a bond and together learns that sometimes following your heart is the best way to find your way home.

Rated by RIFFA

Country: Canada
Language: Canada / English
Director Name: Jennifer Walden
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

On a cold winter night, estranged siblings Sarah and Aaron Cotler arrive at an empty train station in Dombrova, Poland. With their only available ride being a silent Driver, they embark on a quest to fulfil their dying grandmother’s wish – find, dig up, and bring home the bones of her favourite childhood dog, Peter.

Rated by RIFFA

Country: Canada
Language: Canada / English, Polish
Director Name: Zack Bernbaum
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

When headstrong Charlie discovers her parents have been keeping her biological father secret from her, she does what any 18-year old would do – recruits a rough sleeper to be her ‘responsible adult’ and sets off for Scotland on her provisional driving licence to go and find him.

Rated by RIFFA

Country: United Kingdom
Language: Canada / English
Director Name: Leon Chambers
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

Somewhere in the outskirts of Vienna, gypsy mafia man Rocky rules his "family" with an iron fist. Among the members is teenage street beggar Pepe, who is forced to surrender his daily proceeds. One day, young Marcela arrives from East Slovakia, home of the family boss, to work off her father’s debt. Before long, love is in the air between her and Pepe. The trouble is that Rocky has plans of his own for Marcela.

Rated by RIFFA

Country: Austria
Language: German, Slovak, Romani
Director Name: Alexandra Makarová
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

Waiting, counting each euro, lying, waiting: this is Alice's life, 39, single and unemployed. The mandatory jobcentre's trainings don't help. Alice defiantly tries to stay in the game on her own terms. Money is gone, the music goes on...

Rated by RIFFA

Country: Germany
Language: German
Director Name: Lucia Chiarla
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

This is a story of love, dreams, politics, revolution and the aftermath of a freedom war in one of the poorest developing countries and where a few people started to fight against the odds through filmmaking!

Rated by RIFFA

Country: Bangladesh
Language: Bengali
Director Name: Md Ashraful Alam (Ashraf Shishir)
Premier Status: World Premiere

James' aspirations of rebuilding his former life with girlfriend Kelley, are short-lived when her brother confides him with a volatile secret.

Rated by RIFFA
18+

Country: Australia
Language: English
Director Name: Julius Telmer
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

Controversy ensues when four business school students create and launch a new religion on campus. The College administration is pressured by their religious alumni donors to terminate this innovative student project that seems to make a mockery of institutional religion. Do Freedom of Religion rights triumph over big donations?

Rated by RIFFA
14A

Country: United States
Language: English
Director Name: Jeff Deverett
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

When Aluta’s journalist sister is killed for her investigation of a mining conspiracy involving her own boss, Aluta must fight to stop the corruption and bring her sister’s killers to justice.

Rated by RIFFA
14A

Country: South Africa
Language: Zulu, English
Director Name: Zuko Nodada
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

A story about a theater personality, who has written a play adapted from a 1984 banned poem “Ghandi Mala Bhetla” (I met Ghandi). A story about Freedom of Thought.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: India
Language: Hindi
Director Name: Shashank Shekar Singh
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

In Nandigram, India, Swapna and Sucheta, two young women in love with each other took their own lives. They died as they dared to love. Their bodies remained unclaimed by family and society. What if, they ran away and survived? Could they think of a life together? This is a film of hope and possibilities.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: India
Language: Bengali
Director Name: Debalina Majumder
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

At the eastern edge of Canada, small fishing communities fight to survive. While teenagers see exile as their only option, the older generation refuses to accept the fate of the region. A Place of Tide and Time is a conversation between young and old about identity, opportunity and happiness.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: Canada
Language: English
Director Name: Aude Leroux-Lévesque, Sébastien Rist
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

Freedom Besieged is a feature length documentary film concerning the current economic and political climate of Greece amidst what has been described as 'one of the greatest economic collapses in human history'. The film uniquely documents the lives of young Greeks and community leaders searching for hope and identity amidst the doom-and-gloom messaging of what is known by many, simply, as 'The Crisis'.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Canada, Greece
Language: English, Greek
Director Name: Panayioti Yannitsos
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

Eric “Dirt” McComber is a rugged individualist who provides for his large family by
hunting and fishing the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory near Montreal. But he must
straddle two worlds to accomplish his many business, family, and societal functions,
including the sport of lacrosse.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: United States
Language: English 
Director Name: Ryan White, Joanne Storkan
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

An inspiring story about frontline community workers who provide care for Ottawa's inner-city rooming house residents, who often face poverty, addiction and mental illness that often leads to premature death. In the process, they challenge our conventional understanding of palliative (end of life) care.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Canada
Language: English 
Director Name: Ed Kucerak, Danielle Rolfe
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

Eight native women storytellers honoring their words. One tells of her relation to the Bears. Two share their visions as the youngest deliver truthful poems. The director of a storyteller festival, an adventure guide and a shaman walks us through their ancestral territory while a wild one offers beautiful chants.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: Canada
Language: French 
Director Name: Claude Hamel
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

Wolves Unleashed - Against All Odds, is the next film in the award-winning series which follows world renowned animal trainer, Andrew Simpson. This time his journey takes him to China, where he and his team are given the difficult task of raising and training wild Mongolian wolves, for the Chinese blockbuster film 'Wolf Totem'.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: Canada
Language: English 
Director Name: Andrew Simpson
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

Terry & Monique gave up careers as opera singers in Europe to pursue their passion for ecological agriculture and to build a food community in the heart of Canada. Climate Change presents a challenging season, as this diverse group of farmers and scientists aims to regenerate the land and farming.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: Canada
Language: English 
Director Name: Katharina Stieffenhofer
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

In Calgary, Alberta, many Chileans carry within themselves the memory of those who did not survive the horrors of Chile’s dictatorship in 1973.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Canada
Language: Spanish 
Director Name: Juan Bautista Cofre
Premier Status: World Premiere

If a girl lived in the forest with no mirrors, magazines or social media - what would beautiful look like to her and how would she see herself? Come off grid to Devon England where Kuki, her family and others, inspire youth to reconnect with what makes life meaningful and real.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Canada
Language: English 
Director Name: Kim Laureen
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

Feminist painter or traditional housewife? Displaced and isolated, Mary Pratt’s life
was a highly complicated one of delicate rebellion. Award-winning filmmaker, Kenneth J Harvey, reconstructs Mary Pratt's life from archival footage dating back to the 1950s, across decades, and up to Mary's final interview conducted by Kenneth in 2017.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Canada
Language: English 
Director Name: Kenneth J Harvey
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

Russia From Above is the unprecedented endeavour to explore the length and breadth of the largest country on earth. Filmed with the best aerial cameras in the world, the results are spectacular aerial views of pristine landscapes, wild animals and magical cities.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: Germany
Language: English 
Director Name: Freddie Röckenhaus, Petra Höfer
Premier Status: World Premiere

Bécquer and the Witches is a feature documentary about the most romantic spanish poet Bécquer, and his time around Trasmoz, the witches village, the only doomed village by the Church in Spain.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: Spain
Language: Spanish 
Director Name: Elena Cid
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

Canadian Premiere
Directors: Lena Wendt & Ulrich Stirnat

120 min / G

Germany / German

Ulli and Lena want to leave everything behind them for six months. Their plan: driving from Hamburg to South Africa. But they will never get there. Instead, they are taking their old Land Rover Terés and the 40-year-old roof tent, a present from Ulli's auntie, to a journey of nearly two years crisscrossing West Africa. The stakes are high: to find themselves, to feel oneself again. And not to come back before some fundamental change in their attitude towards life happened. Going 46,000 kilometres, more than once around the world, through 14 West African countries the two experience a different adventure every day. Some of them hard to take.

A Thai-Buddhist couple struggles to find closure after cyropreserving their two-year-old daughter – meanwhile their whiz kid teenage son goes on a journey to discover if science will ever revive her.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Thailand, USA
Language: Thai, English 
Director Name: Pailin Wedel
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

Their goal: to save refugees from drowning. For this idea, the crew of the MISSION LIFELINE not only has to endure investigations and legal proceedings in their hometown Dresden. Even at sea, in an attempt to save lives, their project is increasingly turning into a fight for the European idea.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: Germany
Language: German, English, Spanish
Director Name: Markus Weinberg, Luise Baumgarten
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

From the first smartphones to touchscreens, eBay to emojis, the tech that dominates our lives were born at a startup you’ve never heard of. ‘General Magic’ is a tale of how great vision, grave betrayal and an epic failure changed the world.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: United States
Language: English
Director Name: Sarah Kerruish, Matt Maude
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

The untold story of Johanna Langefeld, Chief SS guard at KL Auschwitz and Ravensbrück, who escaped in 1946 from Cracow prison with the help of her former prisoners. Why did Ravensbrück survivors help an SS-guard avoid punishment? Polish-German film investigation reveals circumstances of this escape and who was Johanna Langefeld.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Poland
Language: Polish, German
Director Name: Wladek Jurkow, Gerburg Rohde-Dahl
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

The film Women of the Gulag tells the compelling and tragic stories of the women – last survivors of the Gulag, the brutal system of repression and terror that devastated the Soviet population during the regime of Stalin. The Gulag was first captured by Solzhenitsyn in his opus, Gulag Archipelago. Never before the stories of women and women’s experience in these camps was told in an international documentary film.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: United States/Russia
Language: Russian
Director Name: Marianna Yarovskaya
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

Director Cheryl Allison explores the #MeToo movement in terms of its effects in Texas via interviews with politicians, Dallas-area ministers, teachers, students, social workers and others who bravely share their experiences with patriarchy, sexual harassment in the church, rape culture, community action, and the initiatives taking place to bring forth change.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: United States
Language: English
Director Name: Cheryl Allison
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

The truth isn't always what it seems when a high school football coach comes to confession.

Rated by RIFFA
14A

Country: Canada
Language: English
Director Name: Tyson Poulin
Premier Status: World Premiere

In this family drama, a Russian immigrant couple do all they can to provide help to their daughter while facing their differences.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: Canada
Language: Russian
Director Name: Samiramis Kia
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

Neil Berman, a petty criminal, recently released from prison tries to rehabilitate himself and go 'straight'. He decides to reconcile with his old crime boss Frankie Flacco. Needless to say, the visit doesn't go as planned.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Canada
Language: English
Director Name: Tavit Melikian
Premier Status: World Premiere

Guiyou Shen, a man in his fifties, spends Chinese New Year’s Eve alone at home. His daughter, Yu Shen, arrested for practicing Falun Gong sits in a detention center waiting for her trial. What fate awaits him as visitors come knocking on his door one after another.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: Canada
Language: Mandarin
Director Name: David Li
Premier Status: World Premiere

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Jim Henry

8 min / PG

Canada / English

First of its kind, a Widescreen, 1080p, 16MM film about a hot August day, a few guys are playing golf, discussing business and enjoying the day on the course. But the business at hand being discussed, may not be the business men should be discussing on the course playing golf!

A soft-spoken teenage boy gets a job at the local drive-in theatre to rekindle his relationship with his childhood friend when suspicion surrounding what truly happened at the staff party starts getting in the way.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Canada
Language: English
Director Name: Madison Summers Young
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

Director: Nathan Raine
4 min / G
Canada / English
An aging priest questions God about His eternal silence.

A romance is shaken when a young man belatedly reveals his HIV status to his lover.

Rated by RIFFA
18A

Country: Canada
Language: French
Director Name: Sasha Alcoloumbre
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

A 1970s slice-of-life short film that follows a young boy and his mother as they work through the challenges they face as Portuguese Canadians.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: Canada
Language: Portuguese, English
Director Name: Kayla Resendes
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

UNFOLD is a poetic laboratory that visually symbolizes the unpredictable revealing of oneself to another in friendship.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: Canada
Language: Without Dialogue
Director Name: John Graham
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

Nine-year-old, Katie is forced to spend a day with her senile, blind Grandpa. Through their interactions, she unknowingly gives him something priceless: his memories.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Canada
Language: English
Director Name: Justin Kueber
Premier Status: Canadian Premiere

Julie comes back to claim the inheritance her father left her but her stepmother, Francine, refuses to give it to her. The women will have to come a long way before finding a common ground.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Canada
Language: French
Director Name: Didier Pigeon-Perreault
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

A prostitute struggles with her dreams of becoming a singer until she meets an old blues musician who inspires her to pursue them.

Rated by RIFFA
14A

Country: Canada
Language: English
Director Name: Javier Badillo
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

As a young girl waits for acceptance to her dream arts program, her excitement turning to despondence as time goes on - her Caribbean immigrant mother must make a heart-wrenching decision to make sure her daughter escapes the cycle of poverty the two are caught in.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Canada
Language: English
Director Name: Andrew Simpson
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

The Heiltsuk Nation uphold an unbroken lineage of ancestral teachings that powerfully connect people to place. Watch how the Heiltsuk used the courts to stop oil giant Enbridge, then ride the pendulum as — just 6 months later— the Nathan E. Stewart crash devastated Heiltsuk fishing grounds. The oil spill triggered a legal challenge in which this small Indigenous Nation are taking power from regulators asleep at the wheel: the Nathan E. Stewart sank, but the Heiltsuk are rising.

Rated by RIFFA
G

Country: Canada
Language: English, Heiltsuk
Director Name: Andrea Palframan
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

Over the course of her lonely shift at a convenience store, a young woman pieces together hazy memories of what happened to her the night before and confronts an ugly truth.

Rated by RIFFA
14A

Country: Canada
Language: English
Director Name: Tracey Lavigne
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

The bold new girl at school inspires three classmates to follow her down a blissful path of self-realization, where they stumble upon a dark truth that forever galvanizes their friendship.

Rated by RIFFA
PG

Country: Canada
Language: English
Director Name: Michelle D'Alessandro Hatt
Premier Status: Saskatchewan Premiere

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Haroon Habib

11 min / G

Pakistan / Urdu

A painter wants to paint the portrait of his girlfriend. Seen as a forbidden act by her family, the woman fears for her life. The river metaphorically represents the freedom of love. A film that exposes the darkest parts of a conservative society and the brutal practice of honor killings.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Kristen Gerweck

16 min / G

United States / Japanese

A phone booth on an ocean cliffside brings together seven strangers whose seemingly different conversations are connected by one harrowing reality.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Jhosimar Vasquez

22 min / 14A

United States / English, Spanish

A crime drama where greed, revenge and death all impact one another and nothing is what it seems.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Natalie Medlock

13 min / 14A

New Zealand / English

Faced with a terminal diagnosis, an elderly couple makes a suicide pact. Betty and Frank’s family is deeply divided around their decision and, at the moment of death, the couple’s devotion to one another also faces the ultimate test.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Ken Hagen-Takenaka

9 min / G

Germany / German

Adam is a total slacker but for some reason he wants to take part in a triathlon. Murat is supposed to give him a ride but then the day does not exactly go as planned.. A short live action comedy with animated scenes.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Agathe Riedinger

2 min / G

France / Without Dialogue

Inspired by sentimental surges from mushy novels and archetypes from soaps of the 70’s, the film focuses on two characters: blond Ruth and brown-haired Ruth who play with their own roles to explore a new world.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Felix Karolus

11 min / G

Germany / German

For Charlotte it is like any other Sunday, until the doorbell rings and a stranger surprises her with an exceptional demand.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Maegan Houang

11 min / 14A

United States / Without Dialogue

In Full Bloom tells the story of Cecile, an older Vietnamese hoarder, whose life is upended when worms open a black hole in her house and threaten to take all her stuff.

Canadian Premiere
Director : Rena Dumont

30 min / G

Germany, Czech Republic / German, Czech

The grumpy factory employee Hans Himmelreich has to travel behind the Iron Curtain into a profoundly communist Czechoslovakia of the sixties to bury his deceased grandmother. Despite prejudice he unexpectedly finds happiness in this Sudeten German province.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Dani Holzer

15 min / G

Germany / German

Summertime in Berlin: Coco and Mimi, two twelve-year-old girls want to meet at the public swimming pool. Things are at ease, until their smartphones interfere and start dominating everything. As grown-ups get involved, things don’t get easier. Obviously everybody seems to be under remote control.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Lisa Pozo Nunez

3 min / G

Germany / German, English

Guenther is a greenkeeper with body and soul. Unfortunately his soccer club stays far behind his ambitions. Since they are about to relegate again, it is on him to save the honor of his team.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Maria Hespanhol

18 min / G

Portugal / Portuguese

Penelope departs the dance world by interpreting “Vicky” the main character of “The Red Shoes”. The departure process takes on a feel of nostalgia and doubt over the choice to embark on this new phase in her life or to remain at the dance company as prima ballerina.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Michael Daniel Vetter

17 min / 14A

Germany / German

A boy. No friends. Disturbing family conditions. The main Station of the big town nearby becomes his place of longing for his daily getaways. Lost and comforted by his fantasies he spends most of his spare time watching trains.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Leonore Kasper

15 min / G

Romania, Germany / Romanian

A reporter and a camera operator are visiting the camp of a protesting Roma community in Bucharest that recently got evicted. During the interview the protesters start questioning the real motivation of the reporter team and claim their right to tell their version of the story.

Director: Christine Jezior

6 min / G

Germany / No dialogue

Perfect pictures are given to us every day: the optimal body, the optimal nutrition, the optimal life – everything within reach. All we have to do is make an effort and show some discipline – so the message. Self-tuning is necessary to belong to. And caution: don't show any weakness.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Colin Skevington

26 min / PG

United Kingdom / English

In the dead of night an other-worldly visitor forces a successful business woman, in the final moments of her life, to confront her lost dream before it's too late.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Mayank Malhotra

13 min / G

India / Hindi, English

A Young recruit of the Indian army posted at a remote bunker, is asked to forego his principals of humanity against the rigid border regulations. With a natural calamity at hand, are all regulations applicable?

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Darwin Serink

11 min / G

United States / English, Spanish

Coworkers, Rosa and Raul always share their lunch breaks together, which always includes Rosa’s homemade dishes and an avocado from Raul’s tree. With hopes of companionship and possibly of love, Raul finally gets the courage to ask Rosa out on a date.

Canadian Premiere
Directors: Torsten Kjellstrand, Ben Shors

27 min / PG

United States / English

Fifty years after a flood ravaged his community and killed his parent and sister, Butch New Breast returns to the Blackfeet Reservation “to see if I can still get that old feeling, like I am Blackfeet”.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Gwenn Joyaux

17 min / G

Estonia / English, Russian

In the dawn of the Cold War, a young Soviet telegraphist makes a desperate attempt to save her American lover from being stranded in the Russian side of the Bering Strait after receiving a border closure message.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Nicole Goode

25 min / G

Czech Republic / English, French

Sylvie is a taxidermist content with being isolated from people in her large house in the mountains of France- her only company is her work. That is until Oz, an American hitchhiker stumbles upon her path. The two become close and Sylvie begins to question what it means to live.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Fernando Vera Moreno

14 min / G

Spain / Spanish

Ana is good at locks, and Teo is looking forward to someone entering his house. How two strangers come together one night.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Julie Boehm

9 min / G

Germany / No dialogue

"Art may change the inner as well as the external world”. That’s how our protagonist Ksenia experiences it. The street artist George lures her into his magic world of art illusions. An artistic dance about the realization of your dreams.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Chabname Zariâb

15 min / G

France / Farsi

Somewhere in the desert, a little boy is plunged by force into an intimidating and completely foreign new world: the world of camel racing. Will the distant hope of seeing his mother again give him the strength to overcome his fears and find his place in this hostile environment?

Canadian Premiere
Director: Dominique Barniaud

9 min / G

France / French

Lina is a 9 year old girl and she faces her first little girl troubles. She asks for help from her mother, but a mother can’t do some things…

Canadian Premiere
Director: Jonathan Benedict Behr

10 min / G

Germany / German

A home invasion from a smartphone’s point of view.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Mike Schäfer

15 min / G

Germany / German

Where everything is different and everything is possible. You should feel and see what I feel and see, when music transports me as choreographer and dancer into another world. Be a part of my brain.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Jimmy Olsson

13 min / G

Sweden / Swedish

Charlotte has got a new job as a second grade teacher. One night she is attacked by a Nazi and is severely injured. When she comes back to her students she discovers that one of her students is the son of that Nazi.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Juan Carlos Salas

26 min / G

Mexico / Spanish

A young student is forced to leave his university hall due to a difficult situation and these circumstances lead him to an old house where he meets an ancient man.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Jordan Inconstant

18 min / G

France / French

Captain Justice, has retired and is leading a normal life. But this former hero intends to resume service proving to all that his age is not an obstacle!

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Mark Pinkosh

28 min / PG

United Kingdom / English

You're a successful 30-something lesbian living in Soho. So why does everything feel so FOREIGN? Ruby Welles navigates the streets of London’s Soho, a first date, a secret struggle and the challenge of being a single thirty something buffeted by the sounds and bustle of the West End.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Makez Rikweda

35 min / PG

United Kingdom / English

A story about rebel feminist poet Forugh Farrokhzad whose confessional works and daring personal life broke barriers of sex and society in Iran - and in the process, redefined what it takes to achieve greatness.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Lee Ryan Coston

28 min / PG

United States / English

Everyone needs a Crowbar Moment, where someone stands between you and physical or emotional harm. A lonely young girl searches the neighborhood for love and attention. However, it’s a predator that spots her hungry hollow look and offers her something else. Still searching, as a teenager, an unexpected heroine changes her life forever.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Kristin Gates

25 min / G

USA /English

It's best to experience what you're fighting for. When two adventurers embark on a dangerous four-month expedition documenting the world’s longest land mammal migration through the Arctic Refuge of Alaska and Canada, they soon discover an incredible ecosystem protected by the Gwich’in Nation for more than 25,000 years, yet held on the precipice of collapse by resource development corporations

Canadian Premiere
Director: Oldren Angel Romero Levya

20 min / PG

Cuba, United States / Spanish

In a place where the eyes of God were the only witnesses. Angel a ten year old boy lives with his pregnant mother, his stepfather and grandfather, alone and surrounded by pigs. Angel's mother cannot see what is happening beneath the vault of her sky. Advisory: sexual violence

Canadian Premiere
Director: Andrew Norman Wilson

33 min / G

United States / English

A semi-biographical fiction inspired by his father’s work at one of Kodak’s first processing labs, Wilson’s speculative gloss on the evolution of photochemical science entwines multiple perspectives and personas. Co-written by James N. Kienitz Wilkins, Kodak imagines a dialogue between a blind, mentally unstable former film technician and George Eastman himself, recordings of whom play out over a procession of photographs, home video footage, vintage Kodak ads, and animations.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Ryan Murdock

4 min / G

United States / English

How a secret source of inspiration helped Billy Mills win gold in Tokyo. In “Wings of an Eagle,” Native American Billy Mills’ tells the personal journey that helped him heal his pain over the loss of his mother.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Ryan Murdock

6 min / G

United States, Spain / English

How a farm kid from the prairie made it all the way to the Olympic slopes. Alpine skier Jim Hunter explains how a chance encounter with an Olympic legend inspired him to accomplish the impossible.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Erfan Parsapour

7 min / G

Iran / Without Dialogue

“The Incomplete” is a seven minutes animated short film which tells the story of a hungry but a perfectionist & obsessive otter. He wants everything complete in a perfect world. A world that has countless favorable chances to take.

Director: Arna Selznick

22 min / G

Canada / English

A little girl with a creative spirit sets out to make the most magnificent thing – but it’s not as easy as she thinks! A timeless tale about learning through perseverance and hard work, the power of love and selflessness. Whoopi Goldberg as narrator.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Roger Giménez

5 min / G

Spain / Without Dialogue

This story portrays the human condition in a daily situation. Greed and impatience are always bad advisors, but we are doomed to follow their impulses.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Noah Gavrich

7 min / G

United States / Without Dialogue

What is life but driving in circles?

Canadian Premiere
Director: Ana Horvat

8 min / G

Croatia / English

An adopted girl tells us a story about how families come to be. But sometimes that can be different – as she tells us in a story about her own, special family.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Silvester Zwaneveld

2 min / G

Netherlands / English

Celebrating 50 years since Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Lia Bertels

13 min / G

Belgium / French

All bears are supposed to hibernate. All, except this one with his eyes wide open.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Ana Maria Angel

7 min / G

Germany / Without Dialogue

A story about the consciousness awakening and tribulations in the life of a bug.

World Premiere
Director: Juan Martín González

1 min / G

United Kingdom / English

A vegetarian who makes a living as a manager of a burger restaurant explains his point of view on vegetarianism.

World Premiere
Director: Jorge Dayas

6 min / G

Spain / Without Dialogue

A commuter train departs at night from a lonely and dark station. Through the window several episodes take place over the landscape.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Alex Avagimian

4 min / G

United States / English

A kid is convinced that shooting a bird will turn him into a "Man".

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Abel Goldfarb

9 min / G

Argentina / Without Dialogue

Ian was born with cerebral palsy. Like all kids, he wants to have friends, but discrimination and bullying keep him from his beloved playground. Ian won't give up easily, accomplishing something that will surprise everyone.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Peter Böving

10 min / G

Germany / English

The Egyptian geese marches through the ages: from the bird's perspective, a centuries-long settlement history is told. While the water level in the pond continues to fall, the inhabitants have the water up to the neck. In the end, nothing stays as it was.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Natalia Mirzoyan

7 min / G

Russian Federation / Russian

The mother issues her decree: before you get back in the water, you have to take a break and sit quietly for five minutes. For the little girl, these five minutes are an ocean of boredom that stretches on forever and ever. She starts to watch the other bathers and how they spend their five minutes.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Zoe Papatheohari

4 min / PG

Australia / English

Alphie, a hungry space mechanic, yearns for companionship on her lonely planet. Lucky for her, Peri, a bear-like alien, has a habit of texting while flying - and a spaceship in need of repairs!

World Premiere
Director: Anne Isensee

2 min / G

Germany / German

“I Want” wants loud colours, rainbow music and a cheeky feminist dance poem. You can't always get what you want, but maybe this film can.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Mitchel Wiles

5 min / 14A

Canada / English

They had the lake to themselves, fresh snow and a roaring snowmobile. The wind was bitter, but they were all smiles. It was a perfect father-daughter day, that is, until it wasn't.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Mojtaba Mousavi

9 min / G

Iran / Without Dialogue

The story is narrated in an unknown time, in a ruined modern subway. People in this society have animal faces, they have forgotten humanity and ethics and they do not avoid sins. There is someone with a deer face who is trying to reform society. A stop motion film and puppet drama inspired by a real incident.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Joe Chang

11 min / G

Canada / Chinese

An animated short film based on a true story, set in China during the Cultural Revolution in 1967. A young boy and his family are forced, by the Red Guard, to leave their home. The boy grabs the only thing he treasures - a western style music box.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Zeyu Ren

4 min / G

United States / Without Dialogue

"Wired" is a multi-scene narrative animation made in VR. It tells the story of a world without wireless technology, where every electronic device has to be interconnected with cables.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Diego Porral

1 min / PG

Spain / English

A short film about monsters that walk.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Juan Pablo Etcheverry

7 min / G

Italy / Italian

It is his sixth birthday and Carmelo receives a tree as a gift: a beautiful magnolia that his parents, two humble peasants, planted for him in the courtyard in front of the house. The flight of the leaves tells the destiny and the passing of time through the lyrical and passionate story of little Carmel who, to redeem the family, renounces his greatest good.

World Premiere
Director: Yijun Wang

4 min / G

United States / English

Pangu, born from chaos held up the heavens, separating Heaven from Earth. After he died, his body transformed into the various parts of the world.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: William Mazzoleni Valin

15 min / G

Canada / French, Innu

Matéo, a Métis teenager, is losing his bearings following the suicide of his father. In denial and anger, he will do anything to deny his Innu origins.

Director: Stephen James Payne

19 min / 14A

Canada / English

Jack's Live Bait is a cottage country comedy. Set in a bait store in picturesque Northwestern Ontario, the series revolves around the dysfunctional relationship of owner Curtis, his sole employee Cher and a cast of small town characters. The series has been called the next Corner Gas.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Daniel Fortin

7 min / PG

Canada / English

With no secondary school in her community, Grade 9 student Miranda must leave her family and home behind in order to pursue a high school education.

Directors: Willie Ermine, Margaret Reynold, Rose Bird, Florence Allen, Gilbert Kewistep, Mary Lee, Preston Gardypie

25 min / G

Canada / English

In an extraordinary display of resilience, a group of Elders out on the land address the importance of Indigenous knowledge. Filmed in the fields and forests of First Nations lands across Saskatchewan, Waniska was envisioned and directed by the Elders Circle of the First Nations University of Canada.

World Premiere
Directors: Kristen Anderson-Sauve, Robyn Pitawanakwat

20 min / G

Canada / English

Justice For Our Stolen Children camp stood for 8 months across from the Saskatchewan Legislature. The demonstration was a response to the acquittals of the accused in the Colten Boushie and Tina Fontaine murders and the lack of investigation into the death of Haven Dubois. The camp also stood to illuminate systemic racism in the child welfare and the justice systems.

World Premiere
Director: Spencer Zimmerman

7 min / PG

Canada / English

Surviving under a facade of normalcy, a young woman gets an opportunity to break the cycle of violence when a dinner out with her boyfriend doesn’t go as planned.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Ksenia Ivanova

15 min / PG

United States / English

Based on true events, "Jack and Anna" tells a story of a young couple who live a happy life on their farm when suddenly a man from the past reveals Jack’s biggest secret – that he is, in fact, a woman named Helen.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Marie-Thérèse Jakoubek

43 min / PG

Germany / Hassaniya

For 42 years, around 210,000 Saharawi have been living in camps in the Algerian desert due to the occupation of the Western Sahara by Morocco. The film tells about their life in a temporary existence that evolved into a home against their will and to this day symbolizes their resistance and resilience.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Marc Wagenaar

28 min / G

Netherlands / Dutch

Twenty-year-old Wolf is living in the boxing village of the Netherlands. When he has to fight against his best friend Alexander during a weekly match, he refuses. A rematch is confirmed, which brings Wolf's feelings and emotions to a boiling point. He tries to convince Alexander to join him in leaving the village, but his overly romantic message runs into a wall.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Florence Bouvy

27 min / G

Netherlands / Dutch

Marie is eight years old and loves her dad. In a world where playful dreams can suddenly turn into empty eyes that don't seem to see her, she tries to stand on her own. A story about the strength of a child fighting for the unconditional love of her father.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Anna Ludwig

15 min / G

Germany / German

A single mum is very sad as she isn't able to afford to hire a Father Christmas on Christmas Eve for her children this year – a typical tradition in this family and parts of Germany.
The brothers just notice that mum is unhappy as Father Christmas won’t be coming around. Their conclusion: Mum still believes in Father Christmas.
Now it’s up to them to organize a Father Christmas in order to make mum happy again.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Kavery Kaul

14 min / PG

United States, Cuba / Spanish

An intriguing intergenerational story of artists in Havana whose works hang in museums and galleries worldwide. They experiment with form, content, and bold vision. The documentary traces the enduring lines between art and life.

Director: Jánik von Wilmsdorff
Canadian Premiere

11 min / G

Germany / German

This is the story of Paul, a broken man. A man who has lost everything. A man whose home is now like a ghost town, attracting rubberneckers every day, from all over the world. Since his birth, Paul himself has never gone farther than a few kilometres from this place, because his heart belongs here.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Panagiotis Kountouras

9 min / G

Greece / Without Dialogue

Can you consume your human nature in a meal? When hidden instinct is transformed into morbid obsession, then self-preservation turns into a meaningless ritual of imitation, an act of empty logic.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Chaerin Im

4 min / 18A

United States / English

Experimental animation about gender and sexuality, the awkwardness of division. Uncanny sculptures of vagina and penis are the main element.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Michelle Brand

4 min / G

United Kingdom / Without Dialogue

People come, people go - Yet everyone is moving in the same direction. We all are sharing something that we are unaware of, creating one big picture we are unable to see.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Jean-Luc Moniz

10 min / PG

Canada / English

Mask-maker Teodoro Dragonieri calls on viewers to keep art alive and relevant. Audiences will glimpse into the mind of the eccentric, and eloquent Toronto performer, learning how he breathes life into masks, and witness the transformative power of the mask.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Abhishek Kolge

25 min / G

India / Marathi

Sahebrao Karpe, a farmer from drought-prone district of Maharashtra and deeply in debt, committed suicide along with his wife and four children on March 19, 1986. A suicide note he left behind said, “It is impossible to survive as a farmer.” Based on a true story.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Marie Glichitch

20 min / 14A

Belgium / French

Easter Sunday. Catherine has cooked her stew, Manon is hungover, Jacques is late. Dad is getting married and Pierre is the one who has to announce it. It would be just a normal family meal ... if there wasn't a dead cat in the freezer ...

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Yueh-Tzu Sun

11 min / G

United States, Taiwan / English

A married MeTube couple does a Q&A live streaming to celebrate their one million subscriber achievement and in turn reveal their true life behind the camera.

Saskatchewan Premiere
Director: Sophie Linnenbaum

9 min / G

Germany / No dialogue

Baby pictures, Christmas snapshots, photos of the first day of school, holiday pictures, wedding photographs - our life is an endless sequence of photogenic memories...

Canadian Premiere
Director: Omar Rammal

10 min / G

Jordan / Arabic

The life of Fatimah, a young girl living in a random Syrian refugee camp around the borders of Jordan. Surrounded by her family and neighbors, we are witness to Fatimah’s struggles of identity and growth.

Canadian Premiere
Directors: Cihangir Öztürk, Yasin Erda

21 min / G

Turkey / Turkish

Is a human being obligated to lead a life incompatible with his or her nature? Refusing a life focused on success and status, where does one turn to? This documentary observes the lives of people who seek answers to these questions.

World Premiere
Directors: Aslıhan Aktoz, Deniz Dinçergök

23 min / G

Turkey / Turkish

An ordinary man who works in a famous coffee shop is ignored by the people around him. He decides to open his own YouTube channel hoping that everyone will finally know his name.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Halid İlhan

18 min / 14A

Turkey / Turkish

What does Mozart mean to the children of a neighborhood whose lives are marked by social problems such as street fights and drug trade? This documentary tells the story of young people who live and breathe music, who make their stories heard everywhere from the streets to concert halls.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Muriel Naim

19 min / PG

United States, Israel / Polish, German

Krzysztof, a 10 year old, faces his father's decision to hide a Jewish boy from a nearby village in the family's house. As the new boy prompts the father's attention, Krzysztof develops a flammable jealousy towards him, which reaches a dangerous peak and leads him to an irreversible act.

Canadian Premiere
Director: Tianying Jiang

15 min / PG

United States / English

When Phil, a lonely and jaded cop, has to search for a young boy's runaway girlfriend, who happens to be a pig, he finds himself influenced by the boy's ceaseless determination and begins to imagine acting on his own secret feelings for a radio DJ.