Hemela

Winter. Somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg. Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen deep within the sidewalk ice and try to find a way to get it out. Massoud leads a group of befuddled tourists upon an increasingly-strange walking tour of Winnipeg historic sites. Matthew leaves his job at the Québec government and embarks upon a mysterious journey to visit his estranged mother.

A young man in Tehran on the verge of emigrating. Amid scattered memories, unfinished conversations, and slow-moving days, he faces a decision he hasn’t fully made yet: to leave or to stay. The only thing he refuses to part with is his bicycle – a companion through the city’s streets and a symbol of his past. As his departure to join Tara, his girlfriend now in Italy, grows closer, we learn how years ago, their relationship kept him from joining a family trip that ended in tragedy. Tara became more than a partner – she came to represent the life he was spared.

Grace Pine, a 24-year-old music critic, moves to Montreal to write a book on Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill, but her plans are complicated when she becomes romantically involved with two members of an indie band she is covering and decides to become their publicist.

A docu-fiction hybrid, exploring a burgeoning friendship and blending familial with public memory.

How do you reconcile the expectations of the education system, personal aspirations and the student’s culture and heritage? These fundamental questions are central to Aisha’s inspiring story. The extraverted, creative Kwakwaka’wakw girl doesn’t hesitate to question the institutional capacity to consider her ambitions. With the support of her mother, Gunargie, who was sent to residential school, Aisha wants to leave public school, which is poorly adapted to her temperament and cultural preoccupations. Revealing a sharp observational sense and driven by an energetic protagonist, Another Word for Learning asks probing questions about the foundations of education in Canada, while painting a touching portrait of an inspiring mother-daughter relationship.