This Was the Time

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.

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.

Our People Will Be Healed

2017 · ★ 5.7

Legendary documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin provides a glimpse of what action-driven decolonization looks like in Norway House, one of Manitoba's largest First Nation communities.

Muffins for Granny

2006

Muffins for Granny is a remarkably layered, emotionally complex story of personal and cultural survival. McLaren tells the story of her own grandmother by combining precious home movie fragments with the stories of seven elders dramatically affected by their experiences in residential school. McLaren uses animation with a painterly visual approach to move the audience between the darkness of memory and the reality that these charismatic survivors live in today.

Trump's America: Power, Change, Resistance

2026 · ★ 7

With his ultra-conservative policies, US President Donald Trump is disrupting the global order as well as US institutions and society. Filmed less than one year after the start of his second mandate, this documentary analyses the concrete impact of his policies on the American people.

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.

Button Blanket

2009

This short impressionist documentary looks at the creation of a Button Blanket by integrating the performance of a traditional dance with the art of the West Coast Heiltsuk Nation.

Wandering Spirit Survival School

1978

Wandering Spirit School, organized by concerned parents, broke with tradition by introducing subjects that are of particular relevance to its pupils. Traditional Indigenous stories, traditions, languages and crafts balance the program of academic subjects required by the Ontario Ministry of Education. The experience of the children at Wandering Spirit is contrasted with the very different life experienced by their parents, educated in the old residential schools.

Our Indians

1995 · ★ 6

Yndio do Brasil is a collage of hundreds of Brazilian films and films from other countries - features, newsreels and documentaries - that show how the film industry has seen and heard Brazilian indigenous peoples since they were filmed in 1912 for the first time: idealised and prejudiced, religious and militaristic, cruel and magic.

Tawai: A Voice from the Forest

2017 · ★ 6.2

Explorer Bruce Parry visits nomadic tribes in Borneo and the Amazon in hope to better understand humanity's changing relationship with the world around us.

Nomoto: A BC Tragedy

2022

The injustice of the Japanese internment is explored through the story of Kyuichi Nomoto, one of the first Japanese Canadians to graduate from UBC, who suffered a breakdown deep in the BC Interior.

Canada Vignettes: Bill Reid

1979 · ★ 8

Profile of the Haida artist Bill Reid