Gurdeep Singh Bains

The Water Dwellers

1963 · ★ 7

This short documentary introduces us to a town where no one pays rent: Simoom Sound in central British Columbia, where loggers live on sturdy river craft. Every week there are visitors: the general storekeeper, the flying postman and most importantly, the forest ranger, who is ever alert to the threat of fire.

Your Very Personal Poetry

1982

This poetic core in youngsters is also touched in Stanukina's less known Your very personal poetry (Свои, совсем особые стихи, 1982), a wonderful film about a poetry class. It is here that one recalls Kogan's admiration of Lyalya's emotional documentary skills. And it is here that one recalls Kosakovsky's depiction of Lyalya as a person of extraordinarily prosperous feelings, sensitive and energetic, childish and female, shrill and quiet. The young poets are marvellously sneaky, respectfully adoring and creatively playing with - maybe even deconstructing - "Aleksandr Sergeevich", Mr. Pushkin, Russia's exclusive trade mark of high culture and literature.

September Five at Saint-Henri

1962 · ★ 10

This short film is a series of vignettes of life in Saint-Henri, a Montreal working-class district, on the first day of school. From dawn to midnight, we take in the neighbourhood’s pulse: a mother fussing over children, a father's enforced idleness, teenage boys clowning, young lovers dallying - the unposed quality of daily life.

The Reason I Jump

2020 · ★ 7.2

Based on the book by Naoki Higashida, filmmaker Jerry Rothwell examines the lives of five non-speaking, autistic youngsters.

A Life Ascending

2011

This multiple-award winning documentary chronicles the life of acclaimed mountaineer Ruedi Beglinger. Living with his wife and two young daughters on a remote glacier in the vast mountains of British Columbia, Beglinger has built a reputation as one of the top ski mountaineering guides in the world. The film follows his family’s unique life off the grid and their journey in the years following a devastating avalanche that killed seven people. Documenting the sublime beauty and ever-present risk of a life lived on the edge, the film ultimately explores the power of nature as both an unforgiving host and profound teacher.

Huhu

2014

Lao Zha’s film examines rural life in Haiyuan County, in Ningxia Province. Unlike the rapidly globalizing urban centres, here life remains largely unchanged for the Hui people, a Muslim ethnic group, whose diverse cultural roots incorporate Arabic and Persian influences that arose out of the Hui’s proximity to the Silk Road. In a remote Hui village, a little boy named Huhu is growing up under the watchful eye of his grandparents, and, occasionally, his less-than-reliable mother. (Dorothy Woodend, DOXA Documentary Film Festival)

Video Toy Chest

1990

Promotional video that came from local Child World/Children's Palace toy store chains in a box that included a bag of Krunchers potato chips. The video features a mild plot involving mostly all children who are running a video production studio. It also includes a curly haired rapping man named "Robo-T". The video is a giant commercial with live skits in between as a fun bit until the next commercial.

Out of the Interior: Survival of the small-town cinema in British Columbia

The hard-working cinema owners and operators of the small towns found in BC's southern interior are doing more than showing movies and selling popcorn––they are bringing their communities together.

Autism: The Musical

2007 · ★ 7

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

On Putin's Blacklist

2017 · ★ 1

Traces the new Cold War between Russia and the West from the ban on American citizens adopting Russian children to the Kremlin’s anti-LGBTQ campaign, which positions the international marriage equality movement as a national threat.

Promises

2001 · ★ 7.5

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.

Spellbound

2002 · ★ 7.3

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.