City Survival

A small Canadian town is devasted when a local mine--the town's only source of income--is closed. One man incurs the wrath of the townsmen when he stubbornly refuses the small amount of settlement money offered by the government.

For 200 years, coal mining had been a way of life in Cape Breton. By 1920 things were looking up: miners were unionized and paid decent wages. Then the British Empire Steel Corporation arrived and bought every single steel and coal company in Nova Scotia. BESCO cut wages by a third, setting off a bitter labour dispute. The miners settled in for a long strike. Finally, in 1925, the military ended the unrest with brute force. But the miners, in one sense, had won. They broke up the monopoly and provided an example to workers across the country.

Maggie is an ordinary Canadian girl with the best of intentions who has signed on to work in a Catholic mission in Zimbabwe. With an ample supply of enthusiasm and ignorance, she consistently demonstrates her lack of understanding of the local culture. When she is robbed, she fights for the release of the man convicted of the crime and belatedly makes some attempt to understand her environment.

Lucille comes of age in the rebellious, sexually liberated 1970's. Determined to take advantage of the new freedom offered by The Pill, she explores and experiments with women and men, straight and gay, at home and abroad. Lucille is devoted to being a musician, but her sexual abandonment and haunting past threaten to destroy her. Teddy, a music producer, responds to her appeal for help. He insists that she behave like a professional, and he helps her put together a stronger band. She recruits sax player Hank the Hunk to her band, and they fall in love. Lucille is ready to have a baby, but Hank sits on the fence.

A documentary unlike any other, The Moody Brood explodes the myth of the idealized, normal family-a popular and pervasive post-WWII notion. The film examines issues universal to all families: the effects of community and religion, the influence of siblings, and the moral standards imposed by parents. Award-winning filmmaker Lulu Keating traces the lives of her 10 siblings from their childhood in the 1940s to present day, from a small Catholic community to the world stage. Along the way, she asks some difficult questions: Can we, as adults, shed past experiences? Or do they shape our whole lives?