Arts and Culture Archives - National Canadian Film Day

In 1985, restaurants in Toronto serving Jamaican patties went to war with the federal government over the right to call their beloved dish a “patty”.

Director

Chris Strikes

Genre

Documentary

Interests

Arts and Culture, BIPOC Stories, Black Filmmaker

Original Language

English

Back to the Canadian Film Collection

Paul is a cartoonist who lives with his girlfriend and their little daughter. His in-laws are a large, joyful clan with a much loved patriarch, whose health is failing. Based on a graphic novel of the same name, Paul à Québec is the touching story of a family coping with life’s troubles with courage, tenderness and lots of love.

Director

François Bouvier

Film and TV director Bouvier was nominated for the Best Director Genie in 1990 for his film Les matins infidèles. Since then, he has directed numerous television shows and films, including Histoires d'hiver and Maman Last Call, starring Patrick Huard. He recently directed the TV series Ruptures and the film La Bolduc. Currently he is completing work on the film La Cordonnière.

Writers

François Bouvier, Michel Rabagliati

Cast

François Létourneau, Julie LeBreton, Gilbert Sicotte, Louise Portal

Producers

Nathalie Brigitte Bustos, Valérie d'Auteuil, André Rouleau, Karine Vanasse

Genres

Comedy, Drama

Interests

Arts and Culture, Family Relationships, Literary Adaptation

Original Language

French

Back to the Canadian Film Collection

Alan Zweig’s cult favourite documentary mines the comedy and tragedy of obsessive record collecting, assembling an all-star lineup of audiophiles, store clerks, DJs, Elvis fanatics and hot jazz enthusiasts. A hard-core collector himself, Zweig uses mirror confessionals to excoriate his anti-social compulsion, while approaching his interview subjects with open-hearted compassion.

With this film, Zweig established his voice as a documentarian who is not content to be merely a fly on the wall in the lives of his subjects. Instead, he deploys the camera as a tool for engagement, rooting around in the margins of contemporary society to explore themes of beauty, addiction, love and longing in a profound and unique way.

Director

Alan Zweig

Writer

Alan Zweig

Cast

Alan Zweig, Harvey Pekar, Alan Williams, Don McKellar

Producers

Alan Zweig, Greg Klymkiw, Bruce McDonald, David McCallum

Genre

Documentary

Interests

Arts and Culture, Cult & Offbeat Cinema

Original Language

English

Back to the Canadian Film Collection

In this compelling and still timely documentary, linguist and liberal political activist Noam Chomsky presents his ideas on how the mass media works against the best interests of democracy. He argues that the corporations that control the outlets from which most people get their news are selectively picking what to cover for their own reasons and private agendas, rather than being the impartial news-dispensing entities we believe them to be.

Directed by Mark Achbar, who later made The Corporation, and the late Peter Wintonick, one of our country’s leading documentarians, Manufacturing Consent is a fascinating analysis of how society and the media are driven by corporate interest, and a primer on how to be a well informed citizen in spite of it all.

Directors

Mark Achbar, Peter Wintonick

Producers

Mark Achbar, Peter Wintonick, Adam Symansky

Genre

Documentary

Interests

Arts and Culture, History, Social Justice & Politics

Original Language

English

Back to the Canadian Film Collection

In this challenging and thought-provoking documentary, filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age and the crumbling barriers between users and producers.

The film centres on Girl Talk, a mash-up musician who tops the charts with his sample- based creations, provoking debate about ownership, copyright, piracy and what it means to be an artist in the 21st century.

Musicians, authors and pop culture critics all weigh in on the issues in this wildly innovative and experimental doc.

A great mix of compelling analysis and difficult questions, RiP! addresses issues of sampling, sharing, intellectual property and creative freedom with flair and style.

Director

Brett Gaylor

Writer

Brett Gaylor

Producers

Mila Aung-Thwin, Kat Baulu, Germaine Ying Gee Wong

Genre

Documentary

Interests

Arts and Culture, History

Original Language

English

Back to the Canadian Film Collection

Small-town life is driving Parry Tender (Orphan Black's Gavaris) crazy. It’s the fall of 1960, and Parry spends his time being pursued for truancy by the town constable (Coates) and hanging out with his best friend, Luke (Banszky), a tomboy with some dark secrets in her past. When an American military man (Madsen) brings his family to town, his daughter Debbie (Porter) steals Parry’s heart, much to Luke’s jealous frustration.

This heartfelt and often funny coming-of-age drama takes a turn when a strange weather condition suddenly allows Parry to receive a radio broadcast from New York City, and he starts to believe that a contest the station is running might just be his ticket out of town.

Director

David Schultz

Winnipeg-born writer and director Schultz has worked in TV, shorts and feature films. He wrote and directed the features Jet Boy, Rufus, and Considering Love and Other Magic and wrote screen adaptations of Joy Fielding’s novels Don’t Cry Now, and The Other Woman, as well as the screenplay for The Humanity Bureau, starring Nicolas Cage. He’s currently writing the feature The Side of the Road.

Writer

David Schultz

Cast

Jordan Gavaris, Michael Madsen, Kim Coates, Justine Banszky, MacKenzie Porter

Producers

Anand Ramayya, Michael Frislev, Chad Oakes

Genre

Drama

Interests

Arts and Culture, Family Relationships, Strong Female Leads

Original Language

English

Back to the Canadian Film Collection

In a country cottage beside the still waters of Lake Memphremagog in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, eight intellectuals share a night of frank discussion about life, love, sex and everything in between.

While the story is set in the world of academia, there’s nothing bookish or stuffy about the stories that emerge! Satirical and witty, Le déclin evolves from a comedy of manners to a poignant and moving exploration of relationship and loss.

Ranking twice in the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time list (both the 1993 and 2004 lists), the film was nominated for an Academy Award and winner of nine Genie Awards.

Director

Denys Arcand

Writer

Denys Arcand

Cast

Pierre Curzi, Dorothée Berryman, Louise Portal, Rémy Girard, Gabriel Arcand

Producers

Roger Frappier, René Malo

Genres

Comedy, Drama

Interests

Arts and Culture, Family Relationships, Social Justice & Politics

Original Language

French

Back to the Canadian Film Collection

Based on a true story, Joanna (Margaret Qualley), an aspiring writer, takes a job at a literary agency in New York that represents the notoriously reclusive writer J.D. Salinger, and is tasked with responding to his many fan letters. While it begins as a tedious desk job, she finds herself taken in by the letters and decides she wants to help the fans get their letters to their idol, going against the wishes of her strict manager (Sigourney Weaver).

Director

Philippe Falardeau

Quebecois director and screenwriter Falardeau has won more than 32 international awards for his films, which include Monsieur Lazhar, La moitié gauche du frigo, C'est pas moi, je le jure!, The Good Lie, the political satire Guibord s'en va-t-en guerre, and the recent My Salinger Year as well as the TV show Le temps des framboises.

Writers

Philippe Falardeau, Joanna Rakoff

Cast

Margaret Qualley, Sigourney Weaver, Douglas Booth, Seana Kerslake

Producers

Luc Déry, Kim McCraw

Genre

Drama

Interests

Arts and Culture, Literary Adaptation, Strong Female Leads

Original Language

English

Back to the Canadian Film Collection

In this follow-up film to The Decline of the American Empire, Denys Arcand continues the story of Remy (Girard) a womanizing professor who is now terminally ill with cancer. It’s been 17 years, and Remy is divorced, estranged from his son and his friends, and in search of redemption and forgiveness. As Remy reunites with old friends and loved ones to reminisce about their younger days, the conversations are as gloriously all-encompassing in their scope as they were in Arcand’s previous film.

An illuminating bittersweet-comedy that won Canada’s first Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. The film also won the award for Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival and nearly 50 other awards.

Director

Denys Arcand

Writer

Denys Arcand

Cast

Rémy Girard, Dorothée Berryman, Stéphane Rousseau, Marie-Josée Croze

Producers

Daniel Louis, Denise Robert

Genre

Comedy

Interests

Arts and Culture, Social Justice & Politics

Original Language

French

Back to the Canadian Film Collection

Girard and McKellar’s The Red Violin tells the tale of a very special instrument — a perfectly crafted 17th-century violin finished with a mysterious red glaze. The final masterpiece of a virtuoso craftsman, the violin sits in a Montreal auction house waiting to be sold.

As the auction proceeds, the violin’s history is revealed through four interconnected tales spanning 300 years. And as it passes through the hands of musicians in Italy, Vienna, London and Shanghai, the violin fills its owners’ lives with romance, adventure, intrigue and tragedy. At the centre of the story is the instrument’s dark secret, which is revealed only at the film’s suspenseful finale.

“In a time of timid projects and easy formulas, The Red Violin has the kind of sweep and vision that we identify with elegant features from decades ago.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Director

François Girard

Girard won a Grammy for Secret World Live, a Peter Gabriel concert film. Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould won four Genie Awards, including Best Picture. The Red Violin won eight Genies and an Oscar for Best Original Score. His recent films include Boychoir, starring Dustin Hoffman, and Hochelaga terre des âmes, which was nominated for eight CSAs, winning four. His latest, The Song of Names, premiered at TIFF 2019.

Writers

Don McKellar, François Girard

Cast

Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Flemyng, Colm Feore, Greta Sacchi, Sylvia Chang

Producer

Niv Fichman

Genre

Drama

Interests

Arts and Culture, History

Original Language

English

Back to the Canadian Film Collection

Interest: Arts and Culture

Patty vs Patty

Ratings by Province

Paul à Québec

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Vinyl

Ratings by Province

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media

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RiP! A Remix Manifesto

Ratings by Province

45 R.P.M.

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Le déclin de l’empire américain (The Decline of the American Empire)

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My Salinger Year

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Les invasions barbares (The Barbarian Invasions)

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The Red Violin

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