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Adolescents (19)
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AkoHiroshi Teshigahara 1965 28 minThis short film from 1965 paints a portrait of Ako, a 16-year-old girl who is trying to live in freedom while escaping the traditions of her country. Ako works at a bakery where others like her manipulate masses of dough while engaging in conversation and laughing. Filmed in a disjointed style, the images and dialogue are reminiscent of a dream. -
Am I the skinniest person you’ve ever seen?Eisha Marjara 2024 24 minWARNING: This film contains imagery of anorexia and eating disorders that may be disturbing to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised. “Hey, let’s go on a diet together.” As kids in a small Quebec town, Eisha and Seema were more than sisters, they were soul mates, and a joint diet offered a shared sense of purpose. But their carefree project would take a dark turn, pushing Eisha to the very brink of death. Consumed by anorexia, she found herself battling her own fragile body—stranded between childhood and adulthood. Decades later, she revisits her past in an exquisitely crafted work of auto-ethnography, evoking her unusual youth with aching lyricism. In addressing a tender love letter to the troubled girl she once was, she reaches contemporary audiences with a timely reflection on body image and self-acceptance.
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BorderlineFergus McDonell 1957 28 minThis short film is a portrait of Nora Fenton, a 15-year-old girl who is sent to a home for problem teens because of her persistent defiance of parental authority and self-injurious behavior. Typifying the problems of emotional adjustment experienced by many adolescents, this story of conflict and rebellion shows how understanding, affection and firm parental guidance are the factors most needed in helping teens weather their most turbulent years.
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Beyond the Blues: Child and Youth DepressionMaureen Palmer 2004 56 minStatistics reveal that depression in children and youth is on the rise. In fact, it has increased by one-third in the past 30 years. Untreated depression costs a teenager in many ways: lost eductional opportunities, lost social opportunities and lost time.
Through the personal stories of three young people, this compelling documentary traces the journey of depression, from early signs and symptoms, to assessment, diagnosis and treatment. The documentary also helps shatter some stereotypes.
This powerful 3-part series on child and youth mental health sheds light on the current situation and offers practical tools to understanding the problems and knowing where to find solutions. Depressed kids don't just have a bad attitude--they have an illness. And the illness is treatable.
The two other titles in the series are Fighting their Fears: Child and Youth Anxiety and A Map of the Mind Fields: Managing Adolescent Psychosis. -
BloomFanie Pelletier 2022 1 h 24 minThrough moments in the lives of three groups of girls, images gleaned from the web and live streams of young women around the world, Bloom delves into the world of today's teenage girls. We delicately observe a hyper-connected but lonely generation inhabited by great lucidity, an inner struggle with self-image obsession, and a need for self-affirmation in the face of a complex sense of alienation.
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ChangesMoira Simpson 1989 18 minThis film explores the physical and emotional changes associated with puberty. Imaginative, animated sequences illustrate the amazing physical changes the body undergoes. Myths are dispelled and youngsters are encouraged to feel pride in themselves and their emerging sexuality.
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Dark IntentMireille Dansereau 2000 51 minA poetic meditation by a man and a woman whose teenage son has threatened to end his lifee. What drives someone to that terrible extreme? In an effort to understand and demystify the phenomenon of suicide, the two parents search for answers within themselves. Their personal reflection is intercut with dramatic sequences, archival footage, animation, interviews and first-person accounts that look at suicide from an emotional, rational, cultural, social or medical perspective. Mireille Dansereau has made a sobering film that nevertheless expresses an abiding faith in life. In French with English subtitles.
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Exiles in LotuslandIlan Saragosti 2005 1 h 10 minThis feature documentary tells the story of 2 teens who head out west in search of self. Like a quarter of Vancouver’s itinerant youth population, Mélo and Ti-criss made the trip from Quebec, hopeful for a better life. Still minors, the pair seeks escape and adventure, perhaps the meaning of life. From east to west, from the streets to a hotel, with a welcome interlude in the country, they seek their place in society.
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The End of SummerMichel Brault 1964 27 minFilmed at a summer cottage in the Laurentians north of Montreal, this film penetrates briefly the charmed world of the adolescent. Watching and listening, you sense the bittersweet mood of childhood's end, the poignant awareness that nothing will ever be the same after this summer at the lake. With English subtitles.
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Fighting Their Fears: Child and Youth AnxietyMelanie Wood 2004 56 minAnxiety motivates us to get things done, but for some people, anxiety is not a driver. For many children, anxiety disrupts everyday life, interfering with their ability to make friends or go to school.
Through interviews with experts and three young people, this compelling documentary outlines the causes, symptoms and treatments for anxiety disorders and emphasizes the importance of early identification and intervention. In all of these stories there is hope.
This powerful 3-part series on child and youth mental health sheds light on the current situation and offers practical tools to understanding the problems and finding solutions. It captures real family stories, spotlighting the challenges and breakthroughs.
The two other titles in the series are Beyond the Blues: Child and Youth Depression and A Map of the Mind Fields: Managing Adolescent Psychosis. -
Geneviève1965 28 minTwo teenage girls go to winter carnival in Quebec City for the first time. Their ambiguous, tentative relation with a young boy brings both of them the sweet intensity and disillusionment of first love.
This short is one of four film sketches that comprise the feature La Fleur de l'âge. A co-production initiated by the NFB, it also included Fiametta by Gian Vittorio Baldi (Italy, 1965), Marie-France et Véronique by Jean Rouch (France, 1965) and Ako by Hiroshi Teshigara (Japan, 1965). In French with English subtitles. -
He Acts His AgeJudith Crawley 1949 14 minHow a child's emotional development normally keeps pace with his physical growth; the behaviour he exhibits at certain ages. This introductory film ten from one to fifteen years of age and shows the characteristics of each group.
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Listen Listen ListenBarbara Greene 1976 1 h 22 minThis film is about a controversial educational community in southwestern Ontario where people of all ages come, either freely or referred by the courts, psychiatric wards and training schools. The film focusses on the "referrals," and their common struggle to instill new meaning into their lives.
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A Monster's CallingLouise Johnson 2001 5 minA Monster's Calling is a humorous animated film about the nature of personal anxieties, and body image. An "under-the-bed" monster wanders through a slumbering household, wreaking typical monster havoc. First a little girl, then an older brother, and finally the teenaged big sister. It's surprising, to both the monster and to us, what frightens each of them. A film without words. Ce court métrage d'animation 2D raconte l'histoire d'un monstre qui rôde dans une maison, telle une ombre insaisissable venue troubler le sommeil d'un gamin et de ses deux sœurs. Avec une terrifiante habileté, il s'infiltre tour à tour dans leurs pensées pour réveiller leurs plus grandes peurs. Pour l'adolescente, la pire crainte serait de ne pas correspondre à l'idéal de beauté véhiculé par les médias.
D'où viennent ces monstres qui nourrissent leur sentiment d'insécurité? Pourquoi exercent-ils tant de pouvoir? Conçu pour de jeunes spectateurs, ce film d'animation plein d'humour favorisera les échanges sur l'origine des angoisses suscitées par l'image corporelle. Film sans paroles. -
A Map of the Mind Fields: Managing Adolescent PsychosisNijole Kuzmickas 2004 56 minUntil recently a diagnosis of psychosis was seen as the end to normal life. With onset occurring most often in youth from 13 to 25, this serious mental health disorder often has tragic consequences when undiagnosed or improperly dealt with.
Psychosis is a brain disorder where an individual experiences some loss of contact with reality. Symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, paranoia and disorganized thoughts and speech. Three people share their personal stories: Amanda, 16, Max, 12, and Tara, 18.
This powerful 3-part series offers practical tools to understanding the problems and finding solutions to mental health problems among children and youth. The two other titles in the series are Beyond the Blues: Child and Youth Depression and Fighting Their Fears: Child and Youth Anxiety. -
Maybe ElephantsTorill Kove 2024 16 minIn the ’70s, three rebellious teenage daughters, a restless mother, a father struggling with potatoes, and maybe some elephants, find themselves in bustling Nairobi. The family will never be the same.
Created by Oscar®-winning animator Torill Kove (The Danish Poet), Maybe Elephants is a playful and loving autobiographical homage to family, adolescence and the therapeutic power of memories, however unreliable. -
No Quick FixAndrée Cazabon 2000 51 minA revealing portrait of two young addicts, their life on the street and their despairing parents who find themselves powerless to save their children from the habit that is consuming them. As filmmaker Andrée Cazabon follows Cathy and Laurent for many months, recording their desperate drug-fuelled existence, she remembers her own life on the street. "My parents and I relived that horror," she says of her creative journey. But it was for all parents that she made this film. Cathy's and Laurent's parents live in a permanent state of bewildered anxiety and guilt. How can they avoid being totally destroyed by grief? How do they manage to carry on with their lives, in spite of everything? And how do they deal with a system that views them with suspicion? By grimly showing two children in the grip of a brutal addiction, No Quick Fix hopes to alleviate and identify some of the enormous pain endured by parents coping with an addicted child. In French with English subtitles.
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Silence & StormJeremiah Hayes 1995 52 minEvery summer, Camp Weredale, located in the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal, is home to "system kids," offering them a safe haven and a chance to heal lives scarred by abuse and neglect. Silence & Storm documents two months in the lives of ten kids at this unique summer camp. For some, it was an opportunity to re-learn their capacity to be kids and just play; for others, it was a chance to come to grips with the painful memories that haunt them. Despite backgrounds steeped in pain and disappointment, these young people were able to reveal themselves and express their hopes, fears, anger and loneliness. The result is a sensitive, revealing portrait of an unusual program for youth in care.
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Tales of Ordinary FatphobiaJosiane Blanc 2019 24 minWhat is fatphobia and what can be done to overcome it? With poetic illustrations and painful, compelling testimony, Tales of Ordinary Fatphobia offers multiple examples of the psychological effects of weight-based discrimination and bullying on adolescent girls.
