Writing the Land

Matimekush is landlocked in the former mining town of Schefferville, 700 km north of Sept-Îles. It was founded in the 1950s, when the Canadian government and Iron Or forced the Innu to settle down. In Canada’s Far North, there is a dire labour shortage. At Kanatamat School, the heart of the community, most of the high school teachers are from Africa.

This film takes a candid, inside look at the world of juvenile delinquency. We are shown the tough existence on the streets of Montreal, but it could be any city in North America. Some boys as young as ten years of age talk about their lives of crime, the things that are important to them, and the hopes they hold for the future.

María is an Amorúa girl; an indigenous group that traveled the savannas of Orinoquía as nomads. She lives with her grandmother Matilde, her sister diana and her cousins in Puerto Carreño, in the Colombia-Venezuela border. The amorúa are considered wild and are not literate. Matilde wants her granddaughters to learn to write and read to live better in this town of "rational whites" as they call us. The director follows María's life for 8 years from her childhood to her adolescence and invites her to travel the places her grandma did as a nomad.

A scenic documentary record of a climb up to Mount Assiniboine, the 'American Matterhorn' in the Canadian Rockies.

Historical heritage documentary about the disease that, 100 years ago, occurred during and after the Mexican Revolution. This film presents real testimonies of this cruel pandemic in the indigenous peoples of Mexico in the 20th century.

Sean and Adrian, a Two-Spirit couple, are determined to rewrite the rules of Native American culture through their participation in the “Sweetheart Dance.” This celebratory contest is held at powwows across the country, primarily for heterosexual couples … until now.

Designed to make children aware of the unique functions human teeth perform and the importance of good dental safety habits.

This feature documentary examines its own genre, which has often been called Canada's national art form. Released in the year of the NFB's 75th birthday, Shameless Propaganda is filmmaker Robert Lower's take on the boldest and most compelling propaganda effort in our history (1939-1945), in which founding NFB Commissioner John Grierson saw the documentary as a "hammer to shape society". All 500 of the films produced by the NFB until 1945 are distilled here for the essence of their message to Canadians. Using only these films and still photos from that era, Lower recreates the picture of Canada they gave us and looks in it for the Canada we know today. What he finds is by turns enlightening, entertaining, and unexpectedly disturbing.

A jetliner spans the miles, sheering through clouds to open sky and scenic vistas of the provinces below. Glimpses of town and country, of people of many ethnic origins, of a resourceful and industrious nation - impressions it would take days and weeks to gather at first hand - are brought to you in this vivid 1800-kilometer panorama.