Level%2020 Design%20Studies

The spectacular annual powwow at Manawan. Gilles Moar once saw a bear dancing, and this inspired him to pass his culture on to his daughter and the young in his community. Since 2004, the travelling studios of Wapikoni Mobile have enabled Quebec First Nations youth to express themselves through ...

La procréation et la famille, indispensables à la survie de l'humanité, constituent la base de toute société. C'est pourquoi l'union des hommes et des femmes, qui est à l'origine de la famille (ou du moins qui l'était jusqu'à tout récemment), a toujours été codifiée. La particularité des trois re...

Directed by John Kastner, this feature documentary about violence, mental illness, and the rights of victims tells the story of a troubled young man who stabbed a complete stranger 6 times in a crowded shopping mall while gripped by psychosis. Twelve years later, his victim, who miraculously surv...

A documentary about the Conferences on the Constitutional Rights of the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada (1983-85), focusing on the concept of self-government.

Released in 1968 and often referred to as Canada’s first music video, The Ballad of Crowfoot was directed by Willie Dunn, a Mi’kmaq/Scottish folk singer and activist who was part of the historic Indian Film Crew, the first all-Indigenous production unit at the NFB. The film is a powerful look at ...

This short film tells the story of Mohammed Alsaleh, a young Syrian refugee granted asylum in Canada after fleeing torture and imprisonment by the Assad regime. While rebuilding his life in Vancouver, he assists newly-arrived Syrian refugee families to resettle, finding new homes and new beginnings.

In The Mountain of SGaana, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter spins a magical tale of a young man who is stolen away to the spirit world, and the young woman who rescues him. The film brilliantly combines traditional animation with formal elements of Haida art, and is based on a story inspired b...

This feature documentary tells the remarkable story of a group of 13 Chinese-Canadian civilians who were trained by the British Secret Service for Operation Oblivion—a covert "suicide" mission that would parachute them into the jungles of the Pacific to fight the Japenese during World War II. Thr...

Doc Zone investigates how our love affair with technology taxes our brains, leaving us chronically distracted, less productive and possibly a lot less happy. Are We Digital Dummies? takes a hard look at the risks associated with using so much tech gear, whether we're in the ...

Episode 9: 1867 to 1873 CE.Confederation is barely accomplished when the new dominion must face an enormous challenge: extending its reach into the vast prairies and beyond, to the Pacific Ocean. But Canada blunders catastrophically in seeking to take over the west without the consent of...

Episode 7: 1815 to 1850 CE. By 1830, the struggle for democratic government in the colonies of British North America has reached fever pitch. As the colonies grow in wealth and population, a generation of charismatic reformers — Joseph Howe in Nova Scotia, Louis-Joseph Papineau in Lower ...

This 1950s' film looks at the measures to preserve water flow from the Rocky Mountains. With the steady falling of the water table, the exploitation of timber stands and the recession of glaciers, water conservation was an urgent concern of the Alberta and federal governments.

Episode 6: 1670 to 1850 CE. The Canadian west is opened by the great fur-trading empires of the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Companies, the native people who were their indispensable allies, and bold explorers and map makers who ventured from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean and long-so...

This short film is an exposé on the style of fishing done by Indigenous fishermen in the Prairie provinces. The commentary is offered by a fisherman as he goes about his business. He recalls his boyhood when the men of his band freighted by canoe for the Hudson's Bay Company. He also speaks of ed...

Episode 13: 1929 to 1940 CE. Canada's economy collapses during the 1930s, creating a prolonged political and social crisis. In the context of the Dust Bowl, the relief camps and the Regina Riot, political leaders such as William Aberhart, Maurice Duplessis and Mitchell Hepburn capture na...