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Immigrant Experience (37)
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#6261 (English Version)Kimura Byol-Nathalie Lemoine 2018 15 minThe sense of belonging of eleven Montreal residents who share their local or international immigration experience is enriched by their understanding of elsewhere, others and globalization. Documentary #6261 proposes an artistic vision of the city of Montreal at the intersection of the hybrid identities of the people who live there. -
AsylumGarry Beitel 1998 1 h 18 minThis feature documentary follows three newly arrived people in Canada and their experiences with the Canadian Refugee process. As claims are assessed and paperwork is double checked, we begin to examine exactly who can be considered a refugee.
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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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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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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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Doctors Without ResidencyTetchena Bellange 2010 9 minThis short documentary highlights how the mechanism of discrimination prevents foreign-trained doctors from practicing in Canada – even after they've received their Canadian qualifications. Every year, scores of these doctors are turned down for the residencies they need in order to practice – and many of those residencies stay vacant. Through interviews with medical professionals and human rights advocates it becomes clear that systemic racism is to blame. Strikingly, several doctors interviewed for this film would not speak on camera, fearing repercussions from the medical establishment. What is the real problem: the incompetence of foreign-trained doctors or the injustice of the system?
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Film ClubCyrus Sundar Singh 2001 44 minThis documentary brings together a group of long lost classmates who used to belong to an after-school film club. Formed at the initiative of a Grade 8 teacher eager to pass along his love of cinema, the club attracted a klatch of immigrant kids eager to embrace their new country. Stimulating and creative, the club was a complete departure from anything they had known and provided a safe haven from the harsh world around them. Together, they made a tiny 8mm award-winner called Ohh Canada. Twenty-five years later, the group looks back to marvel at their childhood dreams and the bond they share with the teacher who brought them together.
This film was produced as part of the Reel Diversity Competition for emerging filmmakers of colour. Reel Diversity is a National Film Board of Canada initiative in partnership with CBC Newsworld. -
Fires of EnvyDon Haldane 1957 29 minThis short film is a dramatization of Canadian author W.O. Mitchell's penetrating story about the racial prejudice encountered by a Polish immigrant farmer in a rural Saskatchewan community. Presented with the incisiveness characteristic of Mitchell's Jake and the Kid radio series, this film story employs homespun events of a farming community to lay bare some universal truths about the unthinking discrimination practiced against a man who is different from his English-speaking fellow farmers.
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From Far AwayShira Avni & Serene El-haj Daoud 2000 6 minThis short animation tells the story of Saoussan, a young girl struggling to adjust to life in Canada after being uprooted from her wartorn homeland. She has come to seek a quieter and safer life, although memories of war and death linger, memories that are awakened when the children at her new school prepare for a scary Halloween. From Far Away speaks to the power within us all to adapt like Saoussan and to welcome a newcomer.
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. -
Freedom Had a PriceYurij Luhovy 1994 55 minA disturbing documentary of Canada's first national alien-internment operation. It tells the little-known story of Ukrainian immigrants who found themselves subject to discriminatory and repressive measures during World War I.
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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. -
Home Feeling: Struggle for a CommunityJennifer Hodge & Roger McTair 1983 57 minThis feature documentary takes us to the heart of the Jane-Finch "Corridor" in the early 1980s. Covering six square blocks in Toronto's North York, the area readily evokes images of vandalism, high-density subsidized housing, racial tension, despair and crime. By focusing on the lives of several of the residents, many of them black or members of other visible minorities, the film provides a powerful view of a community that, contrary to its popular image, is working towards a more positive future.
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Hollow LandMichelle Kranot & Uri Kranot 2013 13 minThis animated short is a story about the eternal search for home. Hollow Land begins, as all such searches must, with the dream of utopia. Solomon and Berta are two seekers who arrive—their treasured bathtub improbably in tow—in a land that promises respite from their many journeys. From the first optimistic moments after their arrival, to the final haunting scene at sea, Hollow Land captures the state of being displaced—whether by circumstance or by choice.
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Home AgainSudz Sutherland 2012 1 h 43 minThis feature drama tells the story of Marva, Dunston and Everton, three Jamaicans who grew up in Toronto, New York and London respectively, and are deported “home” to Jamaica. Once in Kingston, they discover that every day is a fight for survival in which family support, friendships and shelter are elusive. They each embark on a journey that pushes their endurance beyond measure and forces them to discover who they truly are. A powerful, visually stunning film, Home Again asks the question: “How would you survive?” Starring Tatyana Ali and singer-songwriter Fefe Dobson.
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JiaWeiye Su 2020 10 minA young Chinese-Canadian couple is visiting family in Wuhan, epicentre of the virus, at the very moment the pandemic is declared. Interviewing his subjects in a novel socially distanced mode, director Weiye Su explores the culturally specific concept of Jia—an idea evoking family or home that acquires sharp new meaning during COVID times.
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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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My Mother's VillageJohn Paskievich 2001 1 h 41 minIn a documentary that spans two continents and several generations, acclaimed director John Paskievich delves into the experience of exile and its impact on the human spirit.
Almost fifty years after his family fled Ukraine for freedom in Canada, the filmmaker visits his parents' homeland. It's a place both familiar and foreign. Drawing on his years growing up in Winnipeg, Paskievich explores how children of refugees and immigrants are caught between two worlds. While they struggle to put down roots in a new country, they must also preserve traditions of a distant land they have never known.
Paskievich's journey through Ukraine is interwoven with stories of displacement from other prominent Ukrainian Canadians--authors George Melnyk and Fran Ponomarenko, filmmaker Bohdana Bashuk, director Halya Kuchmij and dancer Lecia Polujan. A rich tapestry of memory and history, My Mother's Village brings to light the humour, anger, joy and complexity of living between borders. -
Mela's LunchSugith Varughese 1991 14 minThis short drama from the Playing Fair series recounts the shaky beginnings of a friendship between Allison and Mela, a girl who recently immigrated to Canada from India. Mela is trying hard to make friends and get used to her new surroundings, but Peter and other classmates make her feel unwelcome and out of place. Though Allison initially goes along with the group, the film shows that differences in skin color and country of origin need not be an obstacle to friendship or self-esteem.
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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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DetentionElle-Máijá Tailfeathers & David Seitz 2017 37 sThis ultra-short film proves that walls are real and borders are imaginary with an animated critique of long-term detention for minors in immigration centres.
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No Time to StopHelene Klodawsky 1990 29 minKwai Fong Lai is from Hong Kong, Alberta Onyejekwe from Ghana, and Angela Williams from Jamaica. They are immigrants to Canada, visible minorities, and women, a combination designed to make their lives difficult. While Canadian society has yet to accustom itself to its immigrant reality, these strong and resilient women manage to adapt and survive. At home and at work, they speak candidly about the conditions that shape their lives.
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Obachan's GardenLinda Ohama 2001 1 h 34 minPeeling back the layers of her grandmother's life, filmmaker Linda Ohama discovers a painful, buried past in this feature-length documentary. Asayo Murakami, 103 years old, recalls life in Japan, her arrival in Canada as a "picture bride," her determination to marry a man of her choice, the bombing of Hiroshima and the forced relocation of her family during WWII. Beautifully rendered dramatic sequences are merged with an exquisite collection of memories, feelings, images and voices. Culminating in an emotional reunion with a long-lost daughter, this film is a personal reflection of Japanese-Canadian history and a testament to one woman's endurance and spirit.
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PiesSheldon Cohen 2004 12 minThis animated film about blind prejudice is based on a short story by Canadian author Wilma Riley. Mrs. Cherwak is Polish and owns a cow. Mrs. Meuser is a German with entrenched notions of cleanliness. She does not appreciate the cow's inevitable by-product. The film describes their conflict and its curious resolution over coffee and mincemeat pie. While the author chose to write about the Germans and the Poles she grew up with on the outskirts of Regina, the situation she describes could apply anywhere in the world.
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The Physics of SorrowTheodore Ushev 2019 27 minThe Physics of Sorrow tracks an unknown man’s life as he sifts through memories of his youth in Bulgaria through to his increasingly rootless and melancholic adulthood in Canada.
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Pasalubong: Gifts from the JourneyHari Alluri 2010 10 minThis short film features Bonifacio, a young Filipino man who struggles with returning to his birthplace for the first time since immigrating to Canada. He is wracked with guilt due to an old promise he failed to keep . . .
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Question PeriodAnn Marie Fleming 2019 4 min
A group of Syrian women, refugees recently resettled in Canada, are negotiating life in their new home. They have some questions. Directed by Anne Marie Fleming, one of the original FFM filmmakers.
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SanctuaryJamie Escallon-Buraglia 2005 12 minA program for emerging filmmakers to make high impact, low budget docs. Sanctuary tells the story of Sergio Loreto, who has lived in Canada for 18 years, but is now seeking sanctuary in a Toronto church so not be deported to Guatemala.
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Strangers for the DayGeorges Dufaux & Jacques Godbout 1962 27 minThis short documentary shows the reactions of European immigrants as they land in Halifax at the beginning of the 1960s. From the port, we follow them on a snowy journey by train to Montreal.
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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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Sometimes I Wish I Was On a Desert IslandEli Jean Tahchi 2020 10 minAs the world learns to live again in the midst of the pandemic, for many Arabic-speaking LGBTQ+ people living in Montreal, this is just a period of time like any other. When you’ve fled homophobic violence in your home country and endured a painful migratory journey, or you still face social prejudices stemming from intercultural and intergenerational conflicts, surviving social isolation is nothing new.
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Someone Like MeSean Horlor & Steve J. Adams 2021 1 h 19 minTRIGGER WARNING: This film contains scenes depicting homophobia and violence, which may be disturbing to some viewers.
Someone Like Me follows the parallel journeys of Drake, a gay asylum seeker from Uganda, and a group of strangers from Vancouver’s queer community who are tasked with supporting his resettlement in Canada. Together, they embark on a year-long quest for personal freedom, revealing how in a world where one must constantly fight for the right to exist, survival itself becomes a victory. -
Teach Me to DanceAnne Wheeler 1978 28 minIn this drama, Lesia convinces her English-Canadian friend Sarah to perform a Ukrainian dance with her as part of their school's Christmas pageant. Sarah's father, angry at the growing number of Ukrainian settlers, won't allow his daughter to participate. Despite the prejudices of their parents, the girls' friendship remains strong, and they meet in Sarah's barn to celebrate Christmas Day together. Part of the Adventures in History series.
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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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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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Under the Willow Tree: Pioneer Chinese Women in CanadaDora Nipp 1997 51 minA rich and little-known part of Canadian history unfolds through the stories of the first Chinese women to come to Canada and of subsequent generations of Chinese Canadian women. It is an amazing tale of courageous women who left behind their families, knowing they would never see them again and of girls who were shipped off to the New World to marry men they had never met. These are the women who fought against the many forms of racism they faced in Canada while, at the same time, challenging sexism within their own communities. By passing on language, culture, and values to their children, these women defined what it means to be Chinese Canadian. Beautiful old photographs from family albums, the recollections of seven women who grew up in Canada in the first half of the 20th century, and the memories of narrator and director, Dora Nipp, whose grandfather came to Canada in 1881 to build the railway, create a remarkable story of stunning impact.
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Where Do White People Go When the Long Weekend Comes? The Wondrous Journey of Delroy KincaidPowys Dewhurst 2008 7 minDelroy Kincaid, an artistic 8-year-old boy from a tiny seaside Caribbean village, immigrates to Canada. One day he begins to wonder where his white friends go when the holiday weekends come; because he, like many new black immigrants, doesn’t travel. Delroy’s imagination comes alive and takes him on a wondrous journey through which he tries to understand his new home. The journey also helps him reconcile the death of his beloved grandmother, who taught him how to illustrate. ‘Delroy Kincaid’ is a bittersweet whimsical fantasy that uses live action, animation and illustrations to explore the new immigrant experience without dialouge.
*Chosen to represent Canada at World Expo 2010 by Government of Canada, Canadian Heritage, and Cirque du Soleil. *Selected for film festivals and film markets in France, Toronto, Texas, Boston, Kenya, Trinidad, Durban, South Africa, and premièred at the 25th Chicago International Children's Film Festival. *Made with the support of the National Film Board of Canada’s Filmmaker Assistance Program.
