Through Your Eyes

Nanook of the North

June 1922 •English

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Une identité dans la diversité

September 2016 •French

Wonder Boy

November 2019 •French

At age 25, Olivier Rousteing was named the creative director of the French luxury fashion house, Balmain. At the time, Rousteing was a relatively unknown designer, but in the decade since, he’s proven his business prowess and artistic instinct by leading Balmain to new heights. Wonderboy gives the viewer the rare opportunity to experience the inner sanctum of the fashion world, as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with this extraordinary individual while he works.

Elena

June 2021 •Spanish

In 1937, tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were exterminated by the Dominican army, on the basis of anti-black racism. Fast-forward to 2013, the Dominican Republic's Supreme Court stripped the citizenship of anyone with Haitian parents, retroactive to 1929, rendering more than 200,000 people stateless. Elena, the young protagonist of the film, and her family stand to lose their legal residency in the Dominican Republic if they don't manage to get their documents in time. Negotiating a mountain of opaque bureaucratic processes and a racist, hostile society around, Elena becomes the face of the struggle to remain in a country built on the labor of her father and forefathers.

Jack Kerouac's Road: A Franco-American Odyssey

March 1987 •French

Part documentary, part drama, this film presents the life and work of Jack Kerouac, an American writer with Québec roots who became one of the most important spokesmen for his generation. Intercut with archival footage, photographs and interviews, this film takes apart the heroic myth and even returns to the childhood of the author whose life and work contributed greatly to the cultural, sexual and social revolution of the 1960s.

Karihwanoron: Precious Things

April 2017 •English

Yagorihwanirats, a Mohawk child from Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in Quebec, attends a unique and special school: Karihwanoron. It is a Mohawk immersion program that teaches Mohawk language, culture and philosophy. Yagorihwanirats is so excited to go to school that she never wants to miss a day – even if she is sick.

Janette et filles

October 2022 •French

Janette Bertrand, 96, is at the time of the balance sheets. Where are the women, where is the fight for gender equality? An hour of History with a capital H and Love with a capital A, to not forget anything and, above all, never stop moving forward.

Anticosti: La chasse au pétrole extrême

May 2014 •French

NDDJ (Notre-Dame-du-Jambon)

November 2022 •French

Karan and Rohan, two biracial brothers raised in a marginal environment, are finding ways to get stimulated on a normal summer day. They embark on a trip to buy candies to avoid boredom. This film plays with the sense of boundaries between what is real and what is fiction. It is a film about the love of two brothers and their singular reality in the countryside of Quebec.

Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the 70's Generation

September 1999 •English

Canadian director Catherine Annau's debut work is a documentary about the legacy of Pierre Trudeau, the long-running Prime Minister of Canada, who governed during the 1970s. The film focuses particularly on Trudeau's goal of creating a thoroughly bilingual nation. Annau interviews eight people in their mid-30s on both sides of the linguistic divide. One tells of her life growing up in a community of hard-core Quebec separatists, while another, a yuppie from Toronto, recalls believing as a child that people in Montreal got drunk and had sex all day long. Annau has all of the interviewees discuss how Trudeau's policies affected their lives and their perceptions of the other side, in this issue that strikes to the heart of Canada's national identity.

Malartic

February 2024 •French

Ten years after an enormous open-pit gold mine began operations in Malartic, the hoped-for economic miracle is nothing more than a mirage. Filmmaker Nicolas Paquet explores the glaring contrast between the town’s decline and the wealth of the mining company, along with the mechanisms of an opaque decision-making system in which ordinary people have little say. Part anthropological study, part investigation into the corridors of power, Malartic addresses the fundamental issue of sustainable and fair land management.

Resistance: Police Against the Wall

February 2020 •French

The new Longueuil police chief, Fady Dagher, is aware of the challenges he faces. Well positioned for the next five years, he intends to make great changes within this institution. This documentary is an intimate portrait of a man, a vision and an environment into which cameras do not often have access.

Ka Ke Ki Ku

January 1960 •French

This early work from Pierre Perrault, made in collaboration with René Bonnière, chronicles summer activities in the Innu communities of Unamenshipu (La Romaine) and Pakuashipi. Shot by noted cinematographer Michel Thomas-d’Hoste, it documents the construction of a traditional canoe, fishing along the Coucouchou River, a procession marking the Christian feast of the Assumption, and the departure of children for residential schools—an event presented here in an uncritical light. Perrault’s narration, delivered by an anonymous male voice, underscores the film’s outsider gaze on its Indigenous subjects. The film is from Au Pays de Neufve-France (1960), a series produced by Crawley Films, an important early Canadian producer of documentary films.

My Flesh and Blood

April 2003 •English

My Flesh and Blood is a 2003 documentary film by Jonathan Karsh chronicling a year in the life of the Tom family. The Tom family is notable as the mother, Susan, adopted eleven children, most of whom had serious disabilities or diseases. The film itself is notable for handling the sensitive subject matter in an unsentimental way that is more uplifting than one might expect.

Le déluge du Saguenay : une tragédie humaine

July 2021 •French

Entretien en six temps avec Gilles Groulx

January 2002 •French

This feature-length documentary brings together six of the rare television interviews given by Gilles Groulx between 1966 and 1983. Through these interviews, the filmmaker's ethical and aesthetic concerns are revealed. A striking coherence emerges in his thinking regarding his conception of cinema and the role the filmmaker should play in his culture and society.

On Putin's Blacklist

October 2017 •English

Traces the new Cold War between Russia and the West from the ban on American citizens adopting Russian children to the Kremlin’s anti-LGBTQ campaign, which positions the international marriage equality movement as a national threat.

1804: The Hidden History of Haiti

October 2017 •English

1804 is a feature length documentary film about the untold history of the Haitian revolution

L'angoisse du héron

March 2024 •French

Madwoman of God

January 2008 •French

This feature-length film tells the story of the passion between Marie de l’Incarnation, a mid-seventeenth-century nun and God, her "divine spouse." Fusing documentary and acting by Marie Tifo, whom we follow as she rehearses for this demanding role, the film paints an astonishing portrait of this mystic who abandoned her son and left France to build a convent in Canada, where she became the first female writer in New France.