Shift Change

This documentary focuses on boom-and-bust economic cycles, most notably that of Alberta oil during the '70s and early '80s. When the bust hit after a drop in world oil prices, those business people who knew how to "ride a tornado" cut their losses and moved on, while others were left devastated. When Newfoundland was faced with a possible oil boom of its own in the mid-'80s, it took the lessons of Alberta to heart. Part 3 of the series, Reckoning: The Political Economy of Canada.

This feature documentary provides a gripping retrospective of United States-Canada relationships through a study of successive presidents and prime ministers. Using archival film footage, it demonstrates that Canadian prime ministers, from John A. Macdonald down, all began their tenures by making overtures to their American counterparts. Attitudes and outcomes have varied widely. The almost comic antipathy between Kennedy and Diefenbaker, for instance, is as palpable here as is the folksy camaraderie of Reagan and Mulroney. Part four of Reckoning: The Political Economy of Canada series.

Paul Cowan's film captures the spirit of the legal battle over abortion waged by Dr. Henry Morgentaler in Quebec and in federal courts between 1970 and 1976. Using a combination of newsreel footage, interviews and re-enactments, this docudrama unravels the complexities of the case that began as a challenge to Canada's abortion laws and turned into a precedent-setting civil rights case.

Patient Zero is a stewardess, stricken with what she thinks is chickenpox. She goes to ground in a Montreal hotel room. A few weeks later, she's back on the job, unaware of her role in an impending public health catastrophe. Pandemics have killed more people throughout history than all wars combined. They are unpredictable - and inevitable. Are we ready for the next big one? Outbreak: Anatomy of a Plague juxtaposes a 21st century scenario against the little-known story of the 1885 smallpox epidemic that devastated Montreal. Combining brisk narrative with rigorous research, it vividly evokes a modern city under siege, drawing eerie parallels with 1885. Confronted with social unrest, ethnic scapegoating and economic ruin, authorities struggle to maintain control - and to contain a deadly infection.

A revealing look at the great Quebecois director who gave us such classic films as Mon Oncle Antoine, A toute prendre and Kamouraska: Power of Passion. Amidst the rise of French-Canadian identity and the political struggles of the '60s, Jutra was at the forefront of a group of artists dedicated to social change and attacking taboo.

Catherine, a concert pianist, is surprised one night by the arrival of her best friend from childhood, Marie-Alexandrine (Max), whom she hasn't seen for 25 years. Catherine and Max were Québec's most promising young pianists in the mid-1960's when the adventurous Max gets pregnant. She wants to keep the child, but her mother forces her to give him up for adoption; afterwards, Max leaves Québec and music. Now, years later, she returns, obsessed with finding her son. She locates the adoption records, and social services contacts her son to ask if he wants to see her. He refuses, but she keeps trying. Is a relationship with him possible? And what about her musical talent?

When his father dies, Jeffrey is sent to live with his aunt Charlotte in Canada. Once there he leads his aunt and his friends in staging, a non-violent hunger strike to try to save his aunt's house from being demolished to make room for a ski resort.

An emotionally scarred fifty-something female, a high-profile but haunted British novelist, and a heroic dissident-cum-Soviet psychiatric hospital veteran, all reunite decades after bonding and surviving together in a detention camp during World War II.

A woman agrees to a marriage of convenience with a refugee.

Four Anglo-Canadians and a New Yorker find themselves in a two-week long total French immersion program in the fictional, remote town of St-Isidore-du-Coeur-de-Jésus, tucked away somewhere in Northern Quebec. The place is perfect for total immersion since, according to the most recent census, 99% of the population is comprised of pure laine Quebeckers for the most part unilingual French, fervently nationalist, and all, save one person, named Tremblay.

A Mexican social activist fearing for his life seeks asylum in the U.S. He finds illegal work on a Vermont dairy farm alongside other undocumented workers. Here he learns that their ambiguous status leaves them vulnerable to the injustice, abuse and cruelty they were escaping from.