The Man of a Thousand Songs (2010)

Nanook of the North

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Waylon: Renegade. Outlaw. Legend.

The Authorized Video Biography. The true story of Waylon Jennings. From his days as Buddy Holly's protégé to his battles with the Nashville system. From his musical breakthrough in the '70s to drug addiction and recovery in the '80s to his death in 2002. A memorable portrait of one of the great legends of country music. Featuring rare footage and over 20 classic song clips and performances of Waylon's greatest hits, including: Honky Tonk Heroes, This Time, Good Hearted Woman, Luckenbach, Texas, Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way, Amanda, America and The Eagle. Special guest appearances by: Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, Jessi Colter, Rodney Crowell, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, Jr, Richie Albright, Herb Alpert.

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan

A chronicle of Bob Dylan's strange evolution between 1961 and 1966 from folk singer to protest singer to "voice of a generation" to rock star.

Crash 'n' Burn

Crash 'n' Burn is an experimental film shot in and named after Toronto, Ontario's first punk rock club. (Not to be confused with Peter Vronsky's similarly titled 1977 documentary on the Toronto punk scene made for the CBC television network.) The film, shot on 16mm black-and-white stock, features performances by Dead Boys, Teenage Head, The Boyfriends, and The Diodes".

Festival Express

The filmed account of a large Canadian rock festival train tour boasting major acts. In the summer of 1970, a chartered train crossed Canada carrying some of the world's greatest rock bands. The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, Buddy Guy, and others lived (and partied) together for five days, stopping in major cities along the way to play live concerts. Their journey was filmed.

HAND. LINE. COD.

In the coldest waters surrounding Newfoundland's rugged Fogo Island, "people of the fish"—traditional fishers—catch cod live by hand, one at a time, by hook and line. After a 20-year moratorium on North Atlantic cod, the stocks are returning. These fishers are leading a revolution in sustainability, taking their premium product directly to the commercial market for the first time. Travel with them from the early morning hours, spend time on the ocean, and witness the intricacies of a 500-year-old tradition that's making a comeback.

Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the 70's Generation

Canadian director Catherine Annau's debut work is a documentary about the legacy of Pierre Trudeau, the long-running Prime Minister of Canada, who governed during the 1970s. The film focuses particularly on Trudeau's goal of creating a thoroughly bilingual nation. Annau interviews eight people in their mid-30s on both sides of the linguistic divide. One tells of her life growing up in a community of hard-core Quebec separatists, while another, a yuppie from Toronto, recalls believing as a child that people in Montreal got drunk and had sex all day long. Annau has all of the interviewees discuss how Trudeau's policies affected their lives and their perceptions of the other side, in this issue that strikes to the heart of Canada's national identity.

Joan Baez: I Am a Noise

Since her debut at the age of 18, musician, civil rights campaigner and activist Joan Baez has been on stage for over 60 years. For the now 82-year-old, the personal has always been political, and her friendship with Martin Luther King and her pacifism have shaped her commitment. In this biography that opens with her farewell tour, Baez takes stock in an unsparing fashion and confronts sometimes painful memories.

Alaska's Giant Bears

In Canada and Alaska, the consequences of global warming are being keenly felt by brown bears - but in different ways by different populations. Their survival depends mainly on the quantity of wild salmon available in the region, as it is the fruit of their catch that enables the bears to accumulate fat reserves for the winter. While salmon populations off Canada's Pacific coast continue to decline year after year, in the immense Bristol Bay in western Alaska, as well as on Kodiak Island, they are increasing considerably. The water temperature in the North Pacific is now ideal for salmon development. From Canada to Alaska, the documentary follows different bear populations over a two-year period.

Vistas: Red Ochre

Combining archival photos with new and found footage, this short film presents a personal, impressionistic rendering of what it's like growing up Mi'kmaq in Newfoundland, while living in a culture of denial. Vistas is a series of 13 short films on nationhood from 13 Indigenous filmmakers from Halifax to Vancouver. It was a collaborative project between the NFB and APTN to bring Indigenous perspectives and stories to an international audience.

I Am: Celine Dion

A raw and honest behind-the-scenes look at the iconic superstar's struggle with a life-altering illness. Serving as a love letter to her fans, this inspirational documentary highlights the music that has guided her life while also showcasing the resilience of the human spirit.

Without Getting Killed or Caught

Follow Guy Clark, Susanna Clark, and Townes Van Zandt as they rise from obscurity to reverence: Guy, the Pancho to Van Zandt’s Lefty, struggling to establish himself as the Dylan Thomas of American music, while Susanna pens hit songs and paints album covers for top artists, and Townes spirals in self-destruction after writing some of Americana music’s most enduring and influential ballads.

Freshwater

Freshwater is a documentary that dives into the cold waters of Lake Superior along Minnesota’s North Shore. Despite the fact that it contains ten percent of Earth’s freshwater, this massive force of nature remains largely unexplored. One group of people, however, is intimately aware of its power. From the surfers who catch its waves to the scientists who study its depths, learn why Lake Superior is a precious resource that should never be taken for granted.

SuperTurnê: The First and Last Night

“SuperTurnê: The First and Last Night” has its grand premiere capturing unforgettable moments from one of the biggest tours in Brazilian history. Filmed at Allianz Parque in São Paulo, the material showcases the three sold-out shows performed by Jão, which brought over 140,000 people to the stadium, while also revealing behind-the-scenes footage of this unprecedented mega-production in Brazil.

Bowling for Columbine

This is not a film about gun control. It is a film about the fearful heart and soul of the United States, and the 280 million Americans lucky enough to have the right to a constitutionally protected Uzi. From a look at the Columbine High School security camera tapes to the home of Oscar-winning NRA President Charlton Heston, from a young man who makes homemade napalm with The Anarchist's Cookbook to the murder of a six-year-old girl by another six-year-old. Bowling for Columbine is a journey through the US, through our past, hoping to discover why our pursuit of happiness is so riddled with violence.

What Did You Take?

Stresses recognition and treatment of drug abuse emergencies, accurate identification of symptoms, and immediate clinical procedures. Presents scenes of actual cases in the emergency room and adjoining physician's offices of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. Viewers observe emergency treatment of patients in the major classes of drugs commonly abused, opiates, depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens. The film demonstrates to health professionals that successful management of drug overdoses can save most lives and avert additional organic and psychiatric complications.

Kids On Ice

Quiet towns across rural Australia are in the grip of an Ice epidemic. Major international drug cartels are working with local outlawed motorcycle gangs to push crystal meth to a captive market of children.

Focus On Heroin

This film points out the risks of being a heroin addict. Explains that addicts cannot be identified solely with one particular socio-economic level and cannot always be detected by appearance. Addicts and ex-addicts describe the first and subsequent drugs they used.

Heaven Adores You

Heaven Adores You is an intimate, meditative inquiry into the life and music of Elliott Smith. By threading the music of Elliott Smith through the dense, yet often isolating landscapes of the three major cities he lived in -- Portland, New York City, Los Angeles -- Heaven Adores You presents a visual journey and an earnest review of the singer's prolific songwriting and the impact it continues to have on fans, friends, and fellow musicians.

Bad River

Wisconsin's tribe's ongoing fight to protect Lake Superior for future generations. "Bad River" shows the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa's long history of activism and resistance in the context of continuing legal battles with Enbridge Energy over its Line 5 oil pipeline. The Line 5 pipeline has been operating on 12 miles of the Bad River Band's land with expired easements for more than a decade. The Band and the Canadian company have been locked in a legal battle over the pipeline since 2019.

Classic Albums: Carly Simon - No Secrets

Carly Simon is one of the most influential singer-songwriters of her generation. The classic album that made her a global star was No Secrets, which included the enigmatic song You're So Vain. The album spent five weeks at number one in the US chart.

The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights

In 2007 the legendary American duo White Stripes toured Canada. Besides playing the usual venues they challenged themselves and played in buses, cafés and for Indian tribal elders. Music video director Emmett Malloy followed the band and managed to capture both the special tour, extraordinary concert versions of the band's minimalist, raw, blues-inspired rock songs and the special relationship between the extroverted Jack White and the introspective Meg White - a formerly married couple who for a long time claimed to be siblings. The film makes striking use of the band's concert colors: red, white and black.

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - Live in New York City

A two disc amalgam of the final performances of 2001's Madison Square Gardens performances by one of the greatest bands in the world of some of the greatest music in the world. The atmosphere positively floods out of the screen to envelop you and the hairs on your neck will be standing on end before the first note has been struck. After watching this you'll believe that The Boss is incapable of putting a foot wrong. By the end, he's only just short of defying gravity.

Willard: The Hermit of Gully Lake

In the 1940's American-born Willard MacDonald jumped his troop train heading to WWII. Fearing authorities he lived as a hermit deep in the northern wilderness of Nova Scotia, Canada for more than 60 years inspiring folklore for generations.

Half Serious, Half Kidding

Marc with a C is the stage name of Orlando indie/DIY singer-songwriter Marc Sirdoreus and was formally a persona enacted on stage for over 20 years. This documentary covers their career using only filmed stage performances, interviews, and other video and audio releases published online by Marc or their audience. Made from a myriad of videos with view counts ranging from 15 to 30k, it chronicles their attempts to use music and lyrics to connect to and understand others, as well as their relationship to attention and performance as social media swallows up small artists to turn art into content.

Second Skin

Second Skin takes an intimate look at three sets of computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by online virtual worlds. An emerging genre of computer software called Massively Multiplayer Online games, or MMOs, allows millions of users to interact simultaneously in virtual spaces. Of the 50 million players worldwide, 50 percent consider themselves addicted.

Our American Family

Addiction is an all-encompassing force, in not only the lives of the afflicted, but also those around them. Our American Family provides an honest, unfiltered look at a close-knit Philadelphia family dealing with generational substance abuse.

Martha of the North

In the mid-1950s, lured by false promises of a better life, Inuit families were displaced by the Canadian government and left to their own devices in the Far North. In this icy desert realm, Martha Flaherty and her family lived through one of Canadian history’s most sombre and little-known episodes.

Marlon Williams: Two Worlds

Follow the charming Aotearoa New Zealand singer-songwriter on a life-changing journey of self-exploration as he embraces his roots and creates his first album in te reo Māori.

First Stripes

As they undergo 12 weeks of intensive training, a group of young civilians is gradually moulded into soldiers. The Basic Training, a prerequisite for joining the Canadian Armed Forces, becomes the gateway to exploring the inner workings of a world governed by its own rules and values.

Luttes intimes

Plot unavailable

Black October

A documentary recounting the kidnappings of British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Vice-Premier & Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte by the FLQ on October 5, 1970 in Quebec.

No Roads In

An abandoned homestead, twelve songs and five days to cut an album. A journey into how the power of music transforms our life.

Canada Vertical

After years of preparation, a team of highly motivated Quebeckers set out on one of the longest wilderness expeditions ever documented. Stage one involves skiing in relentless polar conditions from Ellesmere Island to the Northwest Passage where the challenge was reaching the mainland. Cue canoes for a 2000km journey across Nunavut and NWT until they reach the first dirt road available where bikes are waiting to be pedalled 4000km to Point Pelee in Ontario.

The Corporation

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

What Jennifer Did

When Jennifer Pan calls 911 to report that her parents have been shot, she becomes the primary focus of a captivating criminal case.

Trick or Treaty?

Legendary Canadian documentarian Alanis Obomsawin digs into the tangled history of Treaty 9 — the infamous 1905 agreement wherein First Nations communities relinquished sovereignty over their traditional territories — to reveal the deceptions and distortions which the document has been subjected to by successive governments seeking to deprive Canada’s First Peoples of their lands.

Guest House

Three women in a re-entry house experience the reality of reintegration and attempt to acclimate to life after being released from incarceration and battling addiction.

Swagger of Thieves

Over a decade in the making, Swagger of Thieves follows rock band Head Like a Hole from the top of the charts to the bottom of a needle. Staring down their age, two pals and the main guts of HLAH, frontman Nigel Booga Beazley and 'co- conspirator' Nigel Regan strut the hard road out of hell, fighting to reconnect and return their band to past glory, amidst disgruntled band mates, a changed music industry, and disappointed wives. Struggling to place past addictions and sabotaged dreams behind them in their continuing quest for rock music relevance, the ever-collapsing binary stars of any Head Like a Hole lineup, are certain (not) to polish their legacy here. Swagger of Thieves captures what it means to be in a band with a reputation. Unrelentingly raw, wild and honest, to the point of being one of the most insightful music documentaries ever made. Essential viewing. New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF), Melbourne International Documentary Film Festival (MIDFF)

Dear Viv

A tribute to drag superstar, The Vivienne. Friends and family share touching stories of the RuPaul's Drag Race UK winner and her legacy. Her spirit lives on through unreleased footage, showcasing her unique personality and how her passion for entertaining left a mark in the world. Interviews with her dearest drag sisters Baga Chipz, Michael Marouli, Danny Beard, Tia Kofi, Cheryl Hole and more.

Cocaine: History Between the Lines

Cocaine has always gotten a bad rap, and for a reason. It is a drug used by the rich and the poor legally and illegally, Mexican cartels fought over it with Colombia once associated with the brutal cocaine wars, and a source of tension between the American and Mexican borders on the people who are illicitly bringing in cocaine from one side of the border to another and will do anything to do it. So it can be surprising at times to the viewer throughout the course of the documentary special, that it was never always like this.