Life Classes

Acclaimed documentarian John Walker catches the legendary Cape Breton Miner’s singing group The Men of the Deeps just as the last mines on the island are shut down. Featuring ravishing cinematography of Cape Breton, and plenty of music, Men of the Deeps is a deeply touching portrait of a culture that still survives despite the ultimate end of an industry, and a tribute to the men and the songs that kept things moving on the Island for almost two hundred years.

When a rebel and a poet leave the town of Whylah Falls for a better life, their love is tested by harship

Elizabeth Sutton, a lecturer from Toronto and Peter Breen, a professor of cultural studies from St. John's, Newfoundland, come together in his town for a secret liaison. All is bliss. But within twenty-four hours, the affair has collapsed. A clash of languages, cultures, and values force them to come to terms with each other's sense of morality.

A family can take many forms, whether as a tightly-knit "traditional" rural family, a single mother and her daughter, a same-sex couple with three children, or a large "blended" family. This film takes us on an intimate journey into the homes and lives of seven families, challenging our views about what family is and what it will be in generations to come.

An aspiring Canadian all-girl punk band reluctantly hires a down and out older male classic rock n roll guitarist.

A beautiful and vital film that tells the story of a young woman's fight with death.

Harry is a television journalist crossing Canada by train to a family event in Newfoundland. While travelling, the journalist is making a documentary about Canada and reassessing his life in response to a friend’s suicide. - http://tiff.net/CANADIANFILMENCYCLOPEDIA/content/bios/william-d-macgillivray

This is an interesting little documentary about the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, which was apparently one of the global hotbeds of experimental/avant garde art- particularly video art- back in the 70's & 80's. MacGillvary interviews a number of the artists that were formative to the program. Many of whom would go on to become teachers at the school.

One young man's plunge into adulthood and the uplifting joy of first love.

A feature length documentary about extraordinary Canadian singer songwriter, Ron Hynes... an insightful and entertaining exploration of the creative process, the genesis of song, the meaning of performance and the vulnerability of an artist compelled to bare his soul through his music. The film is comprised of Ron performing his music (distinct and live for the camera), interwoven with very intimate black box 'interviews' with Ron (shot tightly and directly addressed to the camera), in which he discusses the songs and the life that informed them: late nights, dark alleys, marriage, children, divorce, his near death and recovery from drug addiction... and punctuated with back stage moments, insight from the street, and Ron's nephew author Joel Thomas Hynes, taking the role of 'chorus of the people'.

There is no ‘best thing’ about having terminal cancer, but for forty-year-old Joe, being welcomed back into his childhood home, feeling the warmth and support of his sister and her husband and observing his young niece’s blossoming emotional maturity seem to give new meaning to a life he feels he had wasted. With unexpected humour, stark realism and quiet insight, Under The Weather is an uplifting meditation on one man’s graceful surrender to the inevitable and the palpable impact his passing has on those he leaves behind.

A feature documentary about the life of former Newfoundland Premier, Danny Williams

As one of the most renowned Canadian roots musicians of all time, Ashley MacIsaac has received significant international acclaim. He plays the fiddle in a direct, traditional Cape-Breton style, adding his own unique treatment, mixing genres and making contemporary Celtic music appeal to a wide spectrum of fans. In Celtic Edge, Ashley performs with fellow fiddler Shannon Quinn and DJ/composer Jay Andrews in a concert that explores the relationship between the younger generation of Celtic musicians inspired by Ashley as Ashley discusses his relationship to the older generation of fiddlers who inspired him.

Newfoundland writer Harold Horwood has been called many things, but his own opinion of himself is undiminished. A former union organizer, politician in the Smallwood government, muckraking journalist, and founder of a counterculture "free school" in the 1960s, he is also an award-winning author whose regional base has not lessened his national stature.

A young Halifax architect withdraws from a promising partnership after experiencing events that lead him to question the ethics of his profession. This radical shift in Geoff's career becomes increasingly isolating. His wife leaves him, while his best friend compromises their earlier ideals. Geoff must now rely on his own personal strength as he begins to construct a small home for himself in the country.

A young man overwhelmed by humdrum mechanized life chooses something different.