A new space race begins in a small Texan town in Shifting Baselines. At Spacebase, just outside of the Texan town of Boca Chica, located on the Mexican border, companies such as Space X and Starlink are developing the next generation of rockets and satellites. The rocket tests attract casual observers and independent scientists, who …
Canadian Spectrum Competition
The tragic story behind a photo of an indigenous man that went viral is told in #skoden. Beginning around 2008, a photo of an indigenous man putting his dukes up spread around the internet. Initially used in a derogatory fashion by white supremacists, the photo was reclaimed by indigenous individuals as an Internet meme using …
An online vigilante baits alleged sexual predators in Shamed. Jason Nassr built an online following through his YouTube series Creeper Hunter TV, where he would bait alleged sexual predators by posing as underage girls on dating sites, before confronting them on video. However, this online vigilantism and public shaming resulted in multiple individuals Jason Nassr …
A woman tries to find answers to why her brother experienced the same lost-at-sea fate as her father in Ghosts of the Sea. Virginia Tangvald is the youngest daughter of a famous Norwegian sailor, Peter Tangvald. When Virginia was only 5 years old, Peter died in a shipwreck that also claimed the life of her …
A Toronto filmmaker makes an animated documentary about his family in Shamattawa, Manitoba, in Endless Cookie. Seth Scriver receives funding to make a documentary animation featuring stories narrated by Seth’s indigenous half-brother Peter. Seth travels from Toronto to the First Nations reserve of Shamattawa in Northern Manitoba to record the stories with Peter. However, this …
A Cree survivor of colonial trauma finds solace in his passion for the stars in Wilfred Buck. Wilfred Buck had a traumatic upbringing, with his siblings being victims of the Sixties Scoop and his mother dying on the streets of Winnipeg. Today, Wilfred Buck is an astronomer and educator passionate about the stars. Wilfred Buck …
A young man tries to reconcile his father’s death with the help of old home movie recordings in My Dad’s Tapes. On August 9, 2006, Leonard Watson dropped off his 8-year-old son Kurtis at summer camp and promptly disappeared, only to be found dead a month later of an apparent suicide. 14 years after his …
A 25-year-old Quebecois man is willing to do anything to become the best Michael Jackson impersonator in Me, Michael and I. Freddy Duffour is a 25-year-old man from Quebec who has been obsessed with Michael Jackson since he was 16 years old. Already having had multiple plastic surgeries to look like the King of Pop, …
The nearly forgotten story of one of pop music’s first black trans performers is told in Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story. In the 1960s Jackie Shane was a groundbreaking R&B star, before disappearing from the public eye in 1971. After her nieces Andrenee Majors and Vonnie Moore inherit her belongings and find her …
The life of morticians is shown in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion in Undertaker for Life! If the world didn’t need undertakers, the people would be pretty happy. Director Georges Hannan tackles the taboo profession of preparing the dead for burial with earnestness and humour. This includes comparing embalming to changing the transmission on a car …
The indie rock band July Talk puts on a concert at a drive-in during the COVID-19 pandemic in July Talk: Love Lives Here. The band July Talk, led by Leah Fay Goldstein and Peter Dreimanis, is forced to cancel their upcoming tour due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a contingency, the band plans to perform …
Two teams of cavers set out to break the records for the longest and deepest caves in Canada in Subterranean. Two groups of hobbyist cavers are on the verge of breaking two major records. Katie Graham and her team explore the Bisaro Anima cave in the Rocky Mountains, only 0.5 metres away from being declared …
A young Siksika woman follows her dreams of becoming an Indian relay rider in Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun. Logan Red Crow is a teenage Siksika woman who lives on her family’s ranch in Blackfoot Territory. Logan has been racing horses since she was 15, and she is preparing for one of the most dangerous …
A Toronto carpenter builds tiny homeless shelters amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Someone Lives Here. As Toronto’s homeless population rose throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Toronto carpenter Khaleel Seivwright took it upon himself in the fall of 2020 to create tiny shelters that he would leave for the homeless in Toronto parks. While the public championed …
First Runner-Up: Rogers Audience Award A rock band made up of young people on the autistic spectrum prepare for their first album and performance in Okay! (The ASD Band Film). Rawan Tuffaha (vocals), Jackson D. Begley (vocals/guitar), Spenser Murray (drums), and Ron Adea (keyboards) are four individuals on the autistic spectrum, who have come together …
Winner: Rogers Audience Award Animated reenactments tell the story of a group of activists hijacking the TV signal in China in Eternal Spring. In March 2002, members of the Buddist spiritual group Falun Gong hacked the signal of the state TV station in Changchun City, in response to the Chinese government banning the practice and …
A man tried to find out how his grandfather died in Bernie Langille Wants to Know What Happened to Bernie Langille. Bernie Langille is a man who never met his namesake grandfather, who died under mysterious circumstances in 1968, 15 years before Bernie was even born. One day Bernie feels compelled to find out what …
Explore the various ways junk is reutilized in Scrap. When everyday objects reach the end of their lifespan, they are discarded and are left to decay for decades. However, in many ways, old objects become much more unique than when they were new and people around the world have utilized ways to bring new life …
A group of 11 LQBTQ+ Vancouverites sponsor a refugee from Uganda in Someone Like Me. Canada is the only country in the world with legislation in place to allow LGBTQ refugees from around the globe into the country. Rainbow Refugee is a private sponsorship group in Vancouver, which is currently sponsoring Drake, a queer refugee …
The substance-use crisis and drug-poisoning epidemic among the Kainai First Nation in southern Alberta is explored in Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy. Since 2014, the opioid crisis has cost hundreds of lives to members of the Kainai First Nation, which is on top of the ongoing issue of alcoholism and other substance abuse crises. Filmmaker …
The growing Transhumanist movement is examined in A.rtificial I.mmortality. Humanity has been trying to fight death since the beginning of our existence and there is a growing movement of transhumanists, who believe that the future of humanity lies in artificial intelligence, in the form of eternal digital selves. Filmmaker Ann Shin explores this possibility and …