School of Hope

In the vast expanse of desert East of Atlas Mountains in Morocco, seasonal rain and snow once supported livestock, but now the drought seems to never end. Hardly a blade of grass can be seen, and families travel miles on foot to get water from a muddy hole in the ground. Yet the children willingly ride donkeys and bicycles or walk for miles across rocks to a "school of hope" built of clay. Following both the students and the teachers in the Oulad Boukais Tribe's community school for over three years, SCHOOL OF HOPE shows students Mohamed, Miloud, Fatima, and their classmates, responding with childish glee to the school's altruistic young teacher, Mohamed. Each child faces individual obstacles - supporting their aging parents; avoiding restrictions from relatives based on traditional gender roles - while their young teacher makes do in a house with no electricity or water.

Don't Get Angry

This short film offers a children's guide to anger management.

Horse Drawn Magic

This documentary short introduces us to the Caravan Stage Company, the world's only horse-drawn open-air theater. Every summer it tours British Columbia and Alberta, bringing live entertainment to communities where television is often the main diversion. In a montage of short sketches, the film shows the troupe on the road and in performance. Hard work and laughter are basic ingredients of this unconventional lifestyle.

Grindcore Vacation

Grindcore Vacation melds the expository documentary, diary film, and live performance footage to produce a portrait of the musicians who play grindcore, an extreme sub-genre of punk/metal characterized by high speed and full volume. Shot during a weekend trip from Victoria BC to Dallas TX for a single DIY concert, it interviews members of Deterioration, Cognizant, and Imperial Slaughter. Live concert footage combines with interviews and Super 8mm film to create an impression of the people who play grindcore, why they love the genre, and their experiences as practitioners of the niche style.

Spellbound

This documentary follows 8 teens and pre-teens as they work their way toward the finals of the Scripps Howard national spelling bee championship in Washington D.C.

Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Salvation

Albert Fish, the horrific true story of elderly cannibal, sadomasochist, and serial killer, who lured children to their deaths in Depression-era New York City. Distorting biblical tales, Albert Fish takes the themes of pain, torture, atonement and suffering literally as he preys on victims to torture and sacrifice.

Autism: The Musical

Follows five autistic children as they work together to create and perform a live musical production.

44 Pages

A portrait of Highlights Magazine following the creation of the cultural phenomenon's 70th Anniversary issue, from the first editorial meeting to its arrival in homes, and introducing the quirky people who passionately produce the monthly publication for "the world's most important people,"...children. Along the way, a rich and tragic history is revealed, the state of childhood, technology, and education is explored, and the future of print media is questioned.

Coast Modern

A core group of architects embraced the West Coast from Vancouver to LA with its particular geography and values and left behind a legacy of inspired dwellings. Today, architects celebrate the influence established by their predecessors.

Tus Padres Volverán

In 1983 a group of 154 children aged 3 and 17 years old traveled alone from Europe to Montevideo. They were children of political exiles from Uruguay, who were unable to come back to their own country; they sent their kids to know their relatives and home country. That human sign, charged with a political message, took part in children’s identity development. Nowadays, six of them still remember that day, when a crowd received them singing all together “your parents will come back”.

Enfants surdoués, quels adultes deviennent-ils ?

Promises

Documentarians Justine Shapiro and B.Z. Goldberg traveled to Israel to interview Palestinian and Israeli kids ages 11 to 13, assembling their views on living in a society afflicted with violence, separatism and religious and political extremism. This 2002 Oscar nominee for Best Feature Documentary culminates in an astonishing day in which two Israeli children meet Palestinian youngsters at a refugee camp.

Los Felices

A love letter to Mar del Plata made of images, times and a road trip. "The Happy Ones" is an experimental short documentary composed of past and present family footage. It portrays a place in the summer, the city of Mar del Plata, with a span of 20 years between past and present images (January 2000 and 2020). Despite the time that passed by, it's beaches, essence and people remain, always willing to keep dancing.

Verdwenen vrouwen

Discover the endless highway in British Columbia where over 40 indigenous women and girls (by unofficial estimates) have disappeared since the 1970s.

Tadpoles: The Big Little Migration

Short documentary, shot over fours years, showing the incredible daily migration of the western toad tadpoles, a designated indicator species on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Call Of The Coastal Wolves

Some of the most secluded beaches of British Columbia are home to a unique wolf species that has evolved to gather their sustenance from both land and sea. Call of the Coastal Wolves follows a group of filmmakers over a two week expedition as they endeavour to film the elusive wolf. This short film asks us to reflect on our impacts to the natural world as we witness these compassionate, loving animals that deserve more attention and respect.

Tears for April: Beyond the Blue Lens

In the late 1990s, some officers at Vancouver Police Department made a documentary film (THROUGH A BLUE LENS) about the everyday lives of six drug addicts in Vancouver's skid row, the Downtown Eastside. TEARS FOR APRIL reintroduces us to these six people; with footage shot over a period of nearly ten years, it continues their biography.

Paper Clips

Whitwell, TN is a small, rural community of less than two thousand people nestled in the mountains of Tennessee. Its citizens are almost exclusively white and Christian. In 1998, the children of Whitwell Middle School took on an inspiring project, launched out of their principal's desire to help her students open their eyes to diversity in the world and the horrors and enormity of the holocaust.

Flatball: A History of Ultimate

On May 8, 1989, Sports Illustrated ran an article about Ultimate frisbee… about a team with no name hailing from New York City that was about to change the sport forever. From its 1968 New Jersey birth to its unanimous 2015 recognition by the International Olympic Committee, FLATBALL circles the globe to showcase four decades of world-class Ultimate and goes even further: to a set of fields in the Middle East to understand and demystify the unique spirit of the game.

La circoncision

Rites and operation of the circumcision of thirty Songhai children on the Niger. Material of this film has been used to make "Les Fils de l'Eau".