Bitter Cells

Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make Believe

September 2023 •English

Kindness, creativity, inclusivity, and a touch of magic makes the world a brighter place. Explore the story and impact of Canadian entertainer Ernie Coombs and his iconic series, Mr. Dressup, which enriched the lives of five generations.

Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business

April 1995 •Portuguese

A biography of the Portuguese-born Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda, whose most distinctive feature was her tutti-frutti hat. From her arrival in the US as the "Brazilian Bombshell" to her Broadway career and Hollywood stardom in the 1940s.

Touched

February 2003 •English

The alien abduction phenomenon, told by those who experienced it, with the weight of a Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard psychiatrist at their back.

La Grande Aventure du France

June 2020 •French

Barry & Joan

November 2021 •English

A joyful insight into the creative world of Barry and Joan Grantham, two British eccentrics who have kept the skills of vaudeville alive for over seventy years. Since becoming stage-struck lovers in 1948, Barry and Joan have taught, danced and acted alongside the greats of British film and theatre. They are the last of the golden generation of vaudeville, eager to pass their legacy on to future generations.

Killing the Colorado

August 2016 •English

The drought in the American West is predicted to be the worst in 1,000 years. Join five Academy Award-winning filmmakers as they explore the environmental crisis of our time and how to fix it before it's too late.

Joyce at 34

December 1972 •English

After giving birth, Joyce attempts to regain her position as a filmmaker while also caring for her new baby. The changes to both her and her husband’s professional lives are remarkable and frustrating. The new parents love the baby but must recognize the limitations she puts on their careers.

Egyptian Joan of Arc

January 2016 •Arabic

Egyptian Jeanne d’Arc’ is a creative documentary that explores issues of female emancipation in ‘post post-revolutionary’ Egypt. Beginning with the return journey to Cairo of a filmmaker long absent from her own country, the film weaves a series of intimate portraits composed of interviews, poetic voice-over and dance; exploring themes of oppression, guilt and faith with Egyptian women, many of them artists. Reflecting on Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 film ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’ – in which the female figure is martyred by the patriarchal forces surrounding her – ‘Jeanne’ is a contemporary commentary that melds documentary and dance with poetic storytelling and myth to arrive at the core of the filmmaker’s enquiries into the circumstances of women in Egypt today.

Teatro Amazonas

January 1999 •English

Teatro Amazonas is an elaborate, intriguing formalist experiment investigating the cinematic gaze and cultural exchange, and offering an unconventional ethnographic record of its Amazonian subjects engaged (and disengaged) in the act of spectatorship.

The World According to Monsieur Khiar

November 2015 •Dutch

Laila

January 1980 •English

Laila Paattinen is a working woman. Tired of low-paying jobs, she completed a five-month course in dry-wall installation. Because she had chosen a non-traditional job for women, she ran into resistance in the marketplace. She finally solved her problems by opening her own dry-wall application business. A useful film for women seeking non-traditional jobs.

Cheap Food

September 2020 •French

Industrial food production has provided the public with an abundance of food at very low prices. But with obesity and diabetes at record levels in Europe, there is clearly a problem with the food we eat. This documentary puts the spotlight on the agri-food industry and reveals how low-cost ultra-processed foods are really made.

Time Being

February 1991 •English

Gunvor Nelson stares intently at her mother Carin, a woman whose body has been devastated by the challenges of her last days on this earth. In three astute shots, Nelson looks with honesty rather than awe at a woman whose spirit has somehow flown away but whose body still demands a share of our time and our space.

Incident at Restigouche

January 1984 •French

Incident at Restigouche is a 1984 documentary film by Alanis Obomsawin, chronicling a series of two raids on the Listuguj Mi'gmaq First Nation (Restigouche) by the Sûreté du Québec in 1981, as part of the efforts of the Quebec government to impose new restrictions on Native salmon fishermen. Incident at Restigouche delves into the history behind the Quebec Provincial Police (QPP) raids on the Restigouche Reserve on June 11 and 20, 1981. The Quebec government had decided to restrict fishing, resulting in anger among the Micmac Indians as salmon was traditionally an important source of food and income. Using a combination of documents, news clips, photographs and interviews, this powerful film provides an in-depth investigation into the history-making raids that put justice on trial.

Cathedrals of Culture

May 2014 •English

"If buildings could talk, what would they say about us?" CATHEDRALS OF CULTURE offers six startling responses. This 3D film project about the soul of buildings allows six iconic and very different buildings to speak for themselves, examining human life from the unblinking perspective of a manmade structure. Six acclaimed filmmakers bring their own visual style and artistic approach to the project. Buildings, they show us, are material manifestations of human thought and action: the Berlin Philharmonic, an icon of modernity; the National Library of Russia, a kingdom of thoughts; Halden Prison, the world's most humane prison; the Salk Institute, an institute for breakthrough science; the Oslo Opera House, a futuristic symbiosis of art and life; and the Centre Pompidou, a modern culture machine. CATHEDRALS OF CULTURE explores how each of these landmarks reflects our culture and guards our collective memory.

Rise of the Eco-Warriors

March 2014 •English

A group of passionate young environmentalists spend 100 days in the jungles of Borneo in effort to save the rainforests and its endangered orangutans in this Australian documentary...

Investigation Into the Invisible World

October 2002 •French

A feature length documentary shot in Iceland on mediums and the relationship between humans and invisible beings such as elves ghosts, angels, water monsters and extra-terrestrials. The film is a journey to the frontiers of life questioning the scope of our existence. Are we alone in the universe? If life exists in other dimensions, it's worth knowing more.

Living on the Edge

December 1995 •English

Bill Moyers tells the story of several hardworking Milwaukee families struggling with low-paying jobs after previous employers downsized their operations. Filmed over a period of five years, these families were first featured in Moyers’s 1992 documentary ‘Minimum Wages: The New Economy.’ FRONTLINE chronicles the families’ emotional and financial strains, their search for better jobs and job retraining, and looks at Milwaukee’s efforts to adapt to an ever-shrinking industrial sector.

The first is farce

October 2023 •English

This film is a comment on a current political scenario, where history is in Flux. In a documentary disguise, this film tries to revive faded memories of bygone public figures like Kartar Singh Thatte and other right-wing hardliners... and through the collective memoir, draws a trajectory of a political narrative to understand the 'paradox of tolerance'.

The Fading Nature of Physical Media

December 2021 •English

In the following documentary, we explore how two collectors and a store owner feel about the current digital distribution of video games and what could happen if buying physical media is no longer an option.