When Monsters Were Real

Returning to her hometown of Jerusalem with her young family after several years abroad, documentarian Danae Elon offers an intimate, ground’s-eye view of one of the most fiercely contested cities in the world.

With "sealfies" and social media, a new tech-savvy generation of Inuit is wading into the world of activism, using humour and reason to confront aggressive animal rights vitriol and defend their traditional hunting practices. Director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril joins her fellow Inuit activists as they challenge outdated perceptions of Inuit and present themselves to the world as a modern people in dire need of a sustainable economy.

A very human tech doc, uncovers the real costs of the platform economy through the lives of workers from around the world for companies including Uber, Amazon and Deliveroo. From delivering food and driving ride shares to tagging images for AI, millions of people around the world are finding work task by task online. The gig economy is worth over 5 trillion USD globally, and growing. And yet the stories of the workers behind this tech revolution have gone largely neglected. Who are the people in this shadow workforce? It brings their stories into the light. Lured by the promise of flexible work hours, independence, and control over time and money, workers from around the world have found a very different reality. Work conditions are often dangerous, pay often changes without notice, and workers can effectively be fired through deactivation or a bad rating. Through an engaging global cast of characters, it reveals how the magic of technology we are being sold might not be magic at all.

On a cold winter's day in 1940, Jules and his family move to live with his uncle, mayor of a settler's village in northern Quebec. He is banned from school because of his rare skin disease. From that moment on, his greatest wish is to be cured. When his dog Spark runs away into the wild forest, Jules has no choice but to look for him. On his way, he meets Asha, a mysterious young indigenous girl. Together, they venture to the other side of the forest, where nature reveals itself full of life and secrets.

A woman finds a baby python in her apartment and has a strange connection with it. Together, both snake and woman begin a transformation into something new.

Twelve-year-old Beans is on the edge: torn between innocent childhood and reckless adolescence; forced to grow up fast and become the tough Mohawk warrior she needs to be during the Oka Crisis, the turbulent Indigenous uprising that tore Quebec and Canada apart for 78 tense days in the summer of 1990.

A cook in his heyday, Camilo is now a worn-out fifty-year-old who works for a cleaning company. We can guess a personal failure in the past of this solitary Mexican living in Montreal. However, Camilo wants to get back on track and an opportunity to recover his culinary passion finally presents itself. Everything is in place for this new beginning when Camilo receives a visit from his daughter Tania, with whom he had cut ties because of her drug addiction. She tells him that he is a grandfather and asks him to take care of the child while she undergoes her umpteenth rehab. The arrival of this grandson will upset Camilo’s plans. There will be a new beginning for him, certainly, but not as he imagined it.

Driven by childhood memories and the hope of a reencounter, Sarah visits her paternal grandmother in her village in Uruguay. She takes long to understand the prevailing unease… But she is soon faced with the gap between her fantasy regarding the place of origin and that village of old people forgotten by Modernity where the heat is overwhelming and the days seem to last forever. Cultural shock, humor, tenderness and sadness give shape to this bitter-sweet film.

Chloe, a straight talking film director, tries to convince her friend Sam to be an actor in her next short film. Just after finding out that he once again didn’t get into medical school, Sam meets Alex, a hypochondriac 18 year old. A love triangle forms in these self-reflexive, humoristic fragments filled with sex talk , set in New Orleans.

An obsessed cop is on the trail of a serial killer prowling the streets of Buffalo, N.Y. but when his teenage daughter disappears, he drops any professional restraint to get the killer.

Director Michèle Stephenson’s new documentary follows families of those affected by the 2013 legislation stripping citizenship from Dominicans of Haitian descent, uncovering the complex history and present-day politics of Haiti and the Dominican Republic through the grassroots electoral campaign of a young attorney named Rosa Iris.

In space, a charming little planet named Pluto dreams of joining the Solar System’s official dance troupe. With the help of her asteroid friend, Ceres, and her human discoverer, Clyde William Tombaugh, she will do everything she can to make it happen. In this children’s film, where humans and planets share the spotlight, viewers will accompany Pluto on her quest for fame, until the moment she must face her destiny.

Winter storm’s night. In his last breaths of life, Jules (35 y/o) imagines himself at home, taking one last look at his daughter. As he gaze around, he notices Sara (9 y/o) is immersed in reading a comic book. Jules feels that he doesn’t have much time left. He knows this moment with Sara will be his last, and it will be short. Too short. But all he wants, is to take his time.

Dominique, a shy and introverted teenager, wants just one thing: to become the best hockey player in her league. Her father, acting as her personal trainer, expects no less. But when she secures a coveted trophy, whose win is it?

Summer 1993. Marthe, 12, convinces her brother to run away from home and from the Haitian heritage they both reject. Joined by their cousins in a park, they debate what their future might hold. But as the hours pass, the children begin to realize that what they’re trying to escape is also what binds them together most deeply.

In an effort to understand where she came from, Fabiola asked a question that became the central phrase of the film: what would my life have been like if I'd stayed in Haiti? Taking as her starting point her biological mother's precarious economic situation, she had no choice but to entrust her daughter to her care. Fabiola could have ended up restavek, or in a loving foster family, or on the streets abandoned to her fate, or adopted abroad.