Cool Black North

For decades the iconic track “Bam Bam” has been a sampled darling within the music industry, creating many new stars along the way. But what do we know of its legendary creator? From Kingston to the world, witness the transcendent stylings and legacy of Sister Nancy.

In this emotional, sweeping tale of healing and forgiveness, powerhouse Jamaican American poet and LGBTQ+ activist Staceyann Chin embarks on an international journey to re-imagine the art of mothering—having been abandoned by her own mother as a young child.

Charting the shocking story of how some of music’s most loved artists - from Louis Armstrong to Prince - were exploited by the music industry on the basis of their race.

Heritage Minutes, also known officially as Historica Minutes: History by the Minute, are a series of sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history. They appear frequently on Canadian television and in cinemas before movies and are now also sold on DVD. The Minutes were first introduced on March 31, 1991 as part of a one-off heavily-promoted history quiz show hosted by Rex Murphy. The thirteen original short films were broken up and run between shows on CBC Television and CTV Network. The continued broadcast of the Minutes and the production of new ones was pioneered by Charles Bronfman's CRB Foundation, Canada Post Power Broadcasting, and the National Film Board. They were devised, developed and largely narrated by noted Canadian broadcaster Patrick Watson, while the producer of the series was Robert Guy Scully. In 2009 Historica merged with The Dominion Institute to become The Historica-Dominion Institute. While the foundations have not paid networks to air Minutes, they have made them freely available, and in the early years paid to have them run in cinemas across the country. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has ruled that Heritage Minutes are an "on-going dramatic series" thus each minute counts as ninety-seconds of a station's Canadian content requirements.

A documentary that explores a drag icon's legacy through her family and devoted chosen family. The trailblazing Jamaican drag performer's sudden death in 2021 revealed a life lived in fragments, across identities, and silences.

With the opportunity of a lifetime on the line, headstrong Kaya reaches out to her estranged mother for help, an entanglement that leads to a journey of understanding and healing through hair.

This Heritage Minute follows Chloe Cooley, an enslaved Black woman in Upper Canada in 1793. Her acts of resistance in the face of violence led to Canada’s first legislation limiting slavery.

80-year-old community activist, Winston LaRose, affectionately known as Mr. Jane and Finch supports the residents of a troubled Toronto community with his quiet brand of activism. With gentrification high up on the political agenda, he decides to run for municipal office for the seat of Ward 7 and challenge the entrenched powers.

In their own words, eight women — leading feminist scholars, attorneys and women living with HIV — shine a light on the problems of using sexual assault law to prosecute alleged non-disclosure of HIV. Does the legal concept of consent, intended to protect women’s sexual autonomy, in fact increase their risk of violence and discrimination when used to criminalize HIV?

Stuck on the peripheries of the film industry, a struggling grad student named Erik comes to the realization that his thesis film should be about a grad student named Erik coming to the realization of what his thesis film should be.

Women's voices have rarely been heard on this important issue. What happens if a woman does not disclose her HIV-positive status to a sexual partner? How does criminalization impact HIV-positive women in Canada, who are trying to live their lives in the shadow of stigma and fear? Does the law actually protect women's health? How do women feel about their experience with the criminal law with respect to HIV non-disclosure?

Charlie still has hope and is adamant in caring for her mother, Yolonda Thomas, as her health takes a turn for the worse. Loyal, she insists on sticking by her mother’s side until the very end. But when her school begins to notice Charlie’s absence, she is placed under a system of surveillance and Charlie will soon come to find that some decisions are outside of her control.