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Immigrant Experience (34)
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ArrivalDonald Ginsberg 1957 30 minThis drama portrays an immigrant family and the mingled feelings of hope and despair that characterize their life in a strange land. An Italian wife joins her husband in a large Canadian city. After two years in Canada the husband feels his dream of a better life is close to realization, but his wife feels that differences of language and custom are insurmountable. How such feelings are dispelled by simple gestures of friendship from Canadian-born neighbours gives a heartening conclusion to the film. -
Allô Téta Allô Jedo (English Version)Joudy Hilal 2020 15 minUsing videos shot on her phone, a director of Syrian origin gives her housebound grandparents back in Syria a look in her adopted city of Montreal.
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Angel PeacockPeter Svatek 2019 24 minDawod is a 12 year old Yazidi boy. The Yazidi are a small Kurdish-speaking sect from northern Iraq that dates back to Mesopotamian times – who have been persecuted for almost as long. ISIS has been waging a campaign of genocide against them since 2014. Over 10,000 men have been killed. Thousands of women kidnapped, raped and trafficked. The survivors are in camps in Kurdistan and a lucky few have been brought to Germany and Canada. Dawod and his mother Naro were held captive by ISIS for months. They managed to escape by running through forests for 9 days and nights without food or water. They made it to one of the refugee camps and from there to Canada, arriving in London, Ontario in January 2018. This is the story of Dawod's arrival in and introduction to his new homeland and way of life.
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Beyond PaperOana Suteu Khintirian 2022 2 h 11 minAt a critical moment in the history of the written word, as humanity’s archives migrate to the cloud, one filmmaker goes on a journey around the globe to better understand how she can preserve her own Romanian and Armenian heritage, as well as our collective memory. Blending the intellectual with the poetic, she embarks on a personal quest with universal resonance, navigating the continuum between paper and digital—and reminding us that human knowledge is above all an affair of the soul and the spirit.
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Because We Are GirlsBaljit Sangra 2019 1 h 22 minA conservative Indo-Canadian family in small-town British Columbia must come to terms with a devastating secret: three sisters were sexually abused by an older relative beginning in their childhood years. After remaining silent for nearly two and a half decades, the sisters finally decide to come forward—not only to protect other young relatives, but to set an example for their daughters as well.
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Baghdad TwistJoe Balass 2007 33 minFeaturing a unique collection of archival images, home movies and family photographs from Iraq, Baghdad Twist is a short film that pulls back the curtain on Iraq's once thriving Jewish community. Baghdad-born filmmaker Joe Balass takes us on a journey through the fragmented memories of an Arab exile. This powerful collage forms a portrait of a time and place that no longer exists.
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Boat PeopleKjell Boersma & Thao Lam 2023 9 minAs a child in Vietnam, Thao’s mother often rescued ants from bowls of sugar water. Years later they would return the favour. Boat People is an animated documentary that uses a striking metaphor to trace one family’s flight across the turbulent waters of history.
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The Chinese ViolinJoe Chang 2002 8 minIn this animated short, a young girl and her father move from China to Canada, bringing only their Chinese violin along for the journey. As they face the challenge of starting fresh in a new place, the music of the violin connects them to the life they left behind and guides the girl towards a musical future.
Part of the Talespinners collection, which uses vibrant animation to bring popular children’s stories from a wide range of cultural communities to the screen. -
The Downtown ProjectIsabelle Longtin 2011 52 minJust a stone’s throw from downtown Montreal is the largest social housing complex in Quebec. Built in 1959 where the red-light district used to be, Les Habitations Jeanne-Mance have retained something of the area’s seedy reputation for poverty, prostitution, drugs and violence. But who really knows the projects and the people who live there? Delving beneath the prejudices and stereotypes, director Isabelle Longtin ventured inside the buildings and met the residents. The result is The Downtown Project, a documentary that reveals a complex multi-ethnic reality made up of compelling personal stories and social movements.
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Earth to MouthYung Chang 2002 41 minFilmed at the Wing Fong Farm in Ontario, this documentary follows the tilling, planting and harvesting of Asian vegetables destined for Chinese markets and restaurants. On 80 acres of land, Lau King-Fai, her son and a half-dozen migrant Mexican workers care for the plants. For Yeung Kwan, her son, the farm represents personal and financial independence. For his mother, it is an oasis of peace. For the Mexican workers, it provides jobs that help support their children back home.
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Far from BasharPascal Sanchez 2020 1 h 13 minSeveral years ago, after taking part in the mass uprisings against Bashar al-Assad, Adnan al-Mahamid had to flee Syria with his wife, Basmah, and their four children. Now settled in Montreal, the family opens their door to filmmaker Pascal Sanchez. They’ve adjusted to life in a peaceful city, but Adnan and Basmah still fear for loved ones back in Syria whose status and whereabouts remain unknown. The war that’s thousands of kilometres away continues to haunt them, surging suddenly to the fore in a conversation, Skype call or Facebook feed. Far from Bashar chronicles an endearing family as they go about their lives, tormented by a distant and seemingly interminable conflict.
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Heaven on EarthDeepa Mehta 2008 1 h 44 minIn Heaven on Earth, acclaimed director Deepa Mehta highlights the isolation and disappointment faced by a family of Punjabi immigrants to Canada. When Chand leaves her family and community behind in India to marry a man she's never met in Brampton, Ontario, she finds herself at the mercy of his temper and her mother-in-law's controlling behaviour.
After a magic root fails to transform her husband into a kind and loving man, Chand takes refuge in a familiar Indian folk tale featuring a King Cobra. -
Have You Eaten?Lina Li 2020 5 minLiving in downtown Toronto to attend school, Lina Li returns to the comfort of home in Thornhill and her mother's cooking. In this candid short, filmmaker Lina Li and her mother engage in an intimate conversation about immigration to Canada, misunderstandings, barriers to communicating, love and the taste of home.
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Jaime Lo, Small and ShyLillian Chan 2006 7 minIn this animated short, Jaime Lo's father is sent to Hong Kong for a year-long work assignment. A shy Chinese-Canadian girl, Jaime Lo must use her creativity to cope with his absence. This story offers us a lighthearted glimpse into a common dilemma that many immigrant families face, where one parent must work overseas in order to provide for the rest of the family back home.
Part of the Talespinners collection, which uses vibrant animation to bring popular children’s stories from a wide range of cultural communities to the screen. -
Luckily I Need Little SleepKathleen Shannon 1974 7 minKathy worked as a nurse in Greece and then came to Canada. She and her family live in northern Alberta, where they are developing a farm. Kathy works outside the home as a nurse, sews for the children, maintains the house, and helps with the farm work.
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Lights for GitaMichel Vo 2001 7 minThis animated short, based on the book by Rachna Gilmore, is the story of Gita, an 8-year-old girl who can't wait to celebrate Divali - the Hindu festival of lights - in her new home in Canada. But it's nothing like New Delhi, where she comes from. The weather is cold and grey and a terrible ice storm cuts off the power, ruining her plans for a party. Obviously, a Divali celebration now is impossible. Or is it? As Gita experiences the glittering beauty of the icy streets outside, the traditional festival of lights comes alive in a sparkling new way.
Part of the Talespinners collection, which uses vibrant animation to bring popular children’s stories from a wide range of cultural communities to the screen. -
Luben and ElenaEllie Yonova 2019 1 h 15 minLuben & Elena is a modern day love story that travels across continents and cultures in pursuit of what makes a place a home. Renowned artists, Luben Boykov and Elena Popova, whose formative years were in the midst of intellectual communist Bulgaria, entered adulthood in the “new world” of Newfoundland. Their work came to intimately define the culture and landscape of the province, underscoring in a very real and visual way how the immigrant experience shapes and defines place. Twenty five years later, they embrace transformation in Sicily. A timely immigration story, Luben & Elena is an expression of the imperative of inclusion and a poignant reminder of the impermanence of everything.
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MarthaDaniel Schubert 2020 21 minEven at a frail 90, Martha Katz has an impish energy that remains undiminished. She chides grandson-filmmaker Daniel Schubert over his choice of shirt during a visit to her Los Angeles home, but there’s trauma beneath the humour. At 14, Martha and her family were torn from their village in Czechoslovakia and shipped to Auschwitz. A visit to a Holocaust museum ignites painful memories, including a haunting personal encounter with one of Nazi Germany’s most notorious figures. For Martha, however, the emphasis is on a tough but rewarding postwar life in Winnipeg, which she fondly recalls in this warm, intimate portrait of an unrelenting survivor.
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NamrataShazia Javed 2009 9 minThis short documentary tells the intensely personal story of Namrata Gill – one of the many real-life inspirations for Deepa Mehta’s Heaven on Earth – in her own words. After six years, Gill courageously leaves an abusive relationship and launches a surprising new career.
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One Sunday in CanadaGilles Carle 1961 27 minOne Sunday in Canada visits an Italian community in the northwest sector of Montreal, where about half of the city's 150,000 Italians live. In the new suburbs where they are settling, the streets may have names like Venice, Naples, Genoa; and wherever men and women gather, there is the ebullience characteristic of the Latin. This is a Sunday on which special observances are held at the Italian church of Madonna della Difesa, and it is also the Sunday when Montreal's Cantalia soccer team challenges Toronto's Italia. A very human story of people adapting to life in a new environment.
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A Passage Beyond FortuneWeiye Su 2022 16 minThrough an intimate archive of the Chow’s family lineage, A Passage Beyond Fortune offers an homage to the culturally significant but buried history of Chinese-Canadian communities in Moose Jaw.
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Roses Sing on New SnowYuan Zhang 2002 7 minIn this animated short, based on a story by Paul Yee, Maylin cooks mouth-watering meals at her father's restaurant in Chinatown, but her father and brothers take all the credit. When a dignitary from China visits and tastes one her dishes, Maylin finally earns recognition.
This film is part of the Talespinners collection, which uses vibrant animation to bring popular children’s stories from a wide range of cultural communities to the screen. -
Return HomeMichelle Wong 1992 29 minFirst-generation Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Michelle Wong returns to her birthplace, St. Paul, Alberta, to get reacquainted with her aging grandparents. Her visit becomes an emotional journey into the past and into herself as she documents their stories, their lives. Return Home touchingly explores intergenerational relations while capturing the spirit and experiences of early Chinese-Canadian immigrants and their role in Canadian history. Also available in a Chinese version.
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A Scent of MintPierre Sidaoui 2002 47 minThis documentary recounts filmmaker Pierre Sidaoui’s immigration journey from the small Lebanese town of Abey to Montreal, the city he now calls home. Sidaoui had a carefree childhood, but civil war forced him and his family to flee Lebanon in 1982, the first in a series of moves that would ultimately separate him from his parents, brother and sisters. Two decades later, Sidaoui pauses to reflect. His precious family photos, carefully kept in a shoebox, bring forth a flood of memories - of family, landscapes, music and war. A touching meditation on the pursuit of happiness and the immigrant experience.
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Standing TallMarie Ka 2015 23 minIn this short documentary, three French-speaking women (from Senegal, Mexico and Belgium) examine their own experiences as immigrants in Vancouver, where they raise their children alone. With strength and resilience, these women take up the challenge of rebuilding their lives to provide a “new world of possibility” for their children, while seeking to find their place in Canadian society.
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Some Kind of ArrangementAli Kazimi 1997 45 minIn this documentary, the age-old tradition of arranged marriages takes a modern twist when 3 second-generation South Asian young people decide to marry. Engaging and refreshingly candid in their opinions, they make it clear that arranged marriages aren't what they used to be.
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Strangers at the DoorJohn Howe 1977 28 minThis drama tells the harrowing story of an immigrant family in the New World. On arrival in Canada, their hopes for a better life were dashed when immigration officials refused to grant entry to their daughter. During a routine medical examination it was found that Kasia had contracted an infectious eye disease. She is separated from her family and sent back to Europe alone.
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The Third HeavenGeorges Payrastre 1998 48 minThis documentary gives us a glimpse inside the influential but little-known community of Vancouver’s Hong Kong Chinese. Prejudices fall by the wayside as we discover the community's way of life and the vital role it plays in the Canadian and world economy through a moving, intimate portrait of the Lam family, who arrived here in 1991.
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Ted Baryluk's GroceryJohn Paskievich & Michael Mirus 1982 10 minThis short documentary profiles Ukrainian-Canadian Ted Baryluk, whose grocery store has been a fixture in Winnipeg's North End for over 20 years. In this photo study, Ted talks about his store, the customers who have come and gone and the social changes his multicultural neighbourhood has seen. But most of all he wonders what will become of his store after he retires. He hopes his daughter will take over, but she wants to move away. The film is a wistful rendering of a shopkeeper's relationship with his daughter and a fascinating portrait of a neighbourhood and its inhabitants.
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TzaritzaTheodore Ushev 2006 6 minThis animated short by Theodore Ushev combines warmth, humour and magic in a story about a young girl who misses her grandmother. When Lili finds a tzaritza (magic shell) along the seashore, she hatches a plan to bring her Grandma from Bulgaria to Montreal to make her father happy. Part of the Talespinners collection, the film features music by Normand Roger.
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The Unboxing of Paul Sun-Hyung LeeKathleen Jayme 2023 4 minPaul Sun-Hyung Lee shares his love of family, acting and toys in this special episode of his Funboxing Sundays YouTube show. Okay, see you!
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Where I BelongArinze Eze 2007 45 minThis documentary tells the story of a young man’s struggle to balance his African traditions and new Canadian home. Arinze Eze was born in Canada and raised in Nigeria. An engineer by trade, he returned to his birthplace after 20 years. There, he starts a new career in the arts and falls in love with Canadian woman. All is well until his parents come for a visit. How will they react to this new life?
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Walk a Mile: The Immigrant Experience in Canada - Episode 1 - IdentityDan Moscrip 1999 26 minThis episode puts a human face on the immigrant experience. Newcomers tell us why they have come to Canada and talk about how this move has affected their sense of identity. Families also discuss the conflicts between generations that immigration can cause. Walk a Mile: The Immigrant Experience in Canada is a 4-part series that reveals the challenges faced by immigrants who leave all they know to make a new home in Canada. The aim of this series, as the title suggests, is for viewers to walk that symbolic mile in the others' shoes and to more readily show understanding and tolerance of the immigrant experience in Canada.
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Walk a Mile: The Immigrant Experience in Canada - Episode 4 - EmploymentDan Moscrip 1999 27 minThis final segment looks at the challenges newcomers face finding employment. The problem of having credentials recognized in a new country is explored. Immigrants with job training and skills cannot always work in their field of expertise since Canadian professional associations may not recognize their qualifications. An added difficulty surrounding employment arises from traditional gender roles where the man is expected to be the bread winner. Newcomers may have to adjust to new roles that disrupt family life. The problem posed by lack of job experience in Canada is also addressed. Walk a Mile: The Immigrant Experience in Canada is a 4-part series that reveals the challenges faced by immigrants who leave all they know to make a new home in Canada. The aim of this series, as the title suggests, is for viewers to walk that symbolic mile in the others' shoes and to more readily show understanding and tolerance of the immigrant experience in Canada.
