Funded projects

Atomic Reaction plays out against the backdrop of the top-secret Manhattan Project, as Churchill, Roosevelt and King agree to try and win WWII by building a weapon of mass destruction. Atomic Reaction sets out to examine Canada’s major role in the Manhattan Project. In the Northwest Territories, many of the indigenous men who worked in the LaBine’s uranium mine, died of cancer related diseases in the 1960s. Meanwhile in Port Hope, Ontario, over 250 radioactive hot spots have been identified near their refinery and whispers of strange cancer deaths have swirled since the 1960s. Yes, Atomic Reaction is about the radioactive fallout from those first A-Bombs but amazingly, the reverberations of those explosions over Japan back in 1945, are still being felt in Canada today.

Centuries before the January 2021 rebellion in Washington D.C. , an Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer, Galileo Galilei was convicted of heresy because his scientific findings clashed with Catholic doctrine. But Galileo’s sacrifice is not only a testament to his integrity. His insistence on the supremacy of scientific evidence over personal belief is prophetic of our 21st century predicament of ""alternative facts"".
The WAR ON SCIENCE tells this story through two Canadian mothers; both devoted to their children, both grappling with a devastating loss and each pursuing completely different paths in their search for answers. One is backed by the prevailing science and medical establishment; the other finds the information she trusts from like-minded websites that are deeply suspicious of pharmaceutical companies.
How does fear of autism lead to an anti-government insurrection? The WAR ON SCIENCE investigates the worldviews and outright deceptions that created a breeding ground for anti-authority rhetoric.

The tragic-ironic tale of how German-Canadian gallery owner Max Stern, his heirs and their foes have landed in the eye of the storm raging over the restitution of Nazi-looted art.

STOLEN TIME is a feature documentary that will follow 38-year-old lawyer Melissa Miller over the course of 6 months as she takes on the for-profit care industry in Canada. The story will resonate worldwide as COVID-19 brought the systemic neglect of residents and workers in nursing homes into the public eye.

Spirit of the Mask tells the unknown story of the profound influence of North West Coast Indigenous masks on some of the greatest modern artists of all time while following the dramatic quest to return one of those masks which was brutally stolen during the Potlatch Ban on BC’s west coast exactly 100 years ago.
The film will retrace the mask’s incredible journey, from the moment it was violently taken, to its sale into the hands of collectors and its inspiration on the Surrealists in New York, all the way to the auction halls of Paris, before finally being repatriated to their rightful owners: the ‘Namgis people.
Spirit of the Mask follows Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond as he travels from coast-to-coast-to-coast of Turtle Island and across the Atlantic, putting together the pieces of this ground-breaking global story around the decolonization of art and culture.

Only 165 years ago, a herd of buffalo on the Great Plains would take two days to pass by. After decades of deliberate slaughter, less than 500 remained, devastating the lives and nations of many Indigenous people. Award-winning Cree filmmaker and academic Dr. Tasha Hubbard takes viewers on an epic journey that has not yet been told on screen: the history, present and future of the buffalo from an Indigenous perspective. Throughout her journey to raise buffalo consciousness, Tasha shares the remarkable stories of Indigenous people working tirelessly to restore the buffalo to their rightful place. In a time of climate change, food insecurity, and uncertainty, the land misses the buffalo more than ever, and their return holds immense promise for Indigenous nations, the environment, and all of humanity’s collective survival.

A self-made restaurateur is falsely accused of devil-worship and finds his life in danger. When his troubles are connected to a 1980 bestseller about a satanic love affair between a Canadian woman and her psychiatrist, the truth behind a global satanic conspiracy spanning four decades is finally exposed.

RESIDENT ORCA tells the story of an extraordinary clan of killer whales on the verge of extinction in the Pacific Northwest. The eco-thriller follows two whales fighting for survival, while marine biologists’ race to figure out what is killing them, and an Indigenous community fights to bring home the last remaining whale-clan member still held in captivity.
RESIDENT ORCA follows the fragile fortunes of two members of the Southern Resident Clan: 21-year-old TAHLEQUAH as her new calf Phoenix approaches its first birthday (a survival milestone less than half reach); and their 54 year old relative LOLITA captured as a four-year-old and now the subject of a legal battle by two Indigenous Elders from Lummi Nation to bring her back home after 50 years in Miami’s Seaquarium. The two stories converge in a year of peril and hope for a unique culture and a globally beloved species.

Nuance, humour, and heart: here comes an innovative sex work documentary combining interviews with author/sex worker Andrea Werhun with visually stunning re-enactments to present an authentic perspective on the industry as told and performed by the sex worker herself. With this immersive feature film, audiences will gain a multidimensional look at sex work in a post #MeToo world.
Patriarchal power structures benefit from the systematic silencing and stigmatization of sex workers. Regardless of a provider’s status in the “whorarchy” — that is the class hierarchy within sex work — coming out carries many risks. That’s why Andrea is an iconoclast with a vital point of view: she tells her story, because not every sex worker can tell their own.

Goddess of Slide: The Forgotten Story of Ellen McIlwaine is a feature length documentary about the legendary - and largely forgotten - Canadian musician who fought for her right to play the slide guitar, a male-dominated instrument in a male-dominated world. Eight months after arriving in Greenwich Village with no prospects, Ellen McIlwaine found herself opening for the biggest blues legends in the world, like Odetta, Richie Havens, and Mississippi John Hurt. But it’s the six magical nights Ellen, a young fearless redhead, ignited the stage with Jimi Hendrix that changed the course of her life. She went on to play with the greatest and most acclaimed musicians in the world. From Nashville to Japan, from Georgia to Woodstock, from world traveler to bus driver in Calgary, Ellen, now 75 years old, is the most innovative female slide guitarist ever to grace the stage, and hers is a unique story of survival, passion and justice. Goddess of Slide is an intimate look at a pioneer performer whose road trip to stardom and long career deserves a rightful place in music history.

“Born to Be Wild”: a song we all know, a story we’ve never heard.
At its core is a group of Canadian musicians from Toronto; a shabby garage in L. A. in the late ‘60s, a name ripped from the cover of a Herman Hesse novel, a half-blind singer who emigrated from Post-war Germany, and an Israeli producer. Together, Steppenwolf gave birth to a song that became the anthem of a generation, and a sound that laid the foundation for hard rock and heavy metal, one of the most commercially successful music genres in the world

"BLACK ICE is a feature-length documentary from director Hubert Davis and producer Vinay Virmani. BLACK ICE is more than a film about hockey, it is a film about racism in society. This film is about holding up a mirror to a Canadian culture that has grown complacent in acknowledging our own institutionalized racism. Moreover, it is a film about empowering young Black men who choose to play a sport in which they rarely saw themselves reflected, a game that they’ve loved since they were boys.

Away with Words' is a nonlinear feature documentary that follows the movements of the prolific poet, performer, LGBT activist, and critically acclaimed author Staceyann Chin as she embarks on an international quest to break the cycle of trauma. Her journey is put into motion by a study of her mother Hazel who abandoned her when she was nine years old in Jamaica to immigrate to Montreal, Canada for a 'better life.'
When Hazel, now 78, suddenly disappears from a mental institution in Cologne Germany in the middle of Covid19, Staceyann is jolted into another type of exploration.
With her 9-year old daughter Zuri in tow, we are transported into 3 interconnecting searches; to find Hazel, to learn about her mysterious past, and to seek forgiveness so that she can be the mother she never had.

Freda Huson, a Wet’suwet’en leader, faces down the federal government, multinational oil companies and an armed police invasion, as she leads her nation in a high-stakes struggle to protect their territory from gas and oil pipelines.
A decade ago, Freda Huson began reoccupying traditional Wet’suwet’en territories in what’s known as British Columbia, Canada. Building homes and a healing center on the route proposed for a series of gas and oil pipeline projects, she and other Wet’suwet’en have asserted their right to protect their land. In doing so, they became a thorn in the side of giant energy companies and the Canadian government.
YINTAH (the Wet’suwet’en word for land) follows Freda as she galvanizes resistance to these fossil fuels projects, joining with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs to face down court injunctions and a militarized police force."