Using neon-light animation, Shraya presents an ode to a gay bar in Edmonton that was important to her journey of self-acceptance. Content Note: Coarse Language and Mature Subject Matter

In addition to the feature films in this catalogue, we also offer a wealth of Canadian short films suitable for various grade levels. They cover a variety of themes and topics, and encompass fiction and documentary, live action and animation. For the full list, check out our Short Film Programme page, and use the filters at the top to find something that meets your needs. 

If you’d like to show several short films together as a programme, please feel free to get in touch for advice and tips on selecting the perfect combination for your needs. 

This Canadian documentary chronicles the era of lesbian-themed pulp romance paperbacks of the 1950s, a time when titles such as “Odd Girl Out” spoke to the isolated and confused young lesbians of the era. Ten women (including one of the authors of these novels), talk about being queer in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s, discovering these books, and going through their own first love affairs and painful breakups.

The hardships they faced (from being shunned by their families to enduring police raids) are interspersed with archival footage and four dramatized chapters from a pulp novel, Forbidden Love. The desperate measures resorted to by the protagonists in these works of pulp fiction are shown to have been quite tame compared to the real-life experiences of these women.

The film won the Genie Award for best feature documentary.

“It is testimony to how clever the film and filmmakers are that a documentary about history continues to seem so utterly timeless.” – Matthew Hays, POV Magazine

Maggie (Karyn Dwyer) is happy with her life in Vancouver. She works at an LGBTQ+ bookstore owned by Frances (Anne-Marie MacDonald) and has recently fallen head over heels with a young artist named (Christina Cox). When the couple decide to take their romance to the next level and move in together, everything seems perfect.

That is, until Maggie’s recently-divorced mom Lila (Wendy Crewson) and brother Paul turn up at her doorstep, looking to stay with her. The unlikely foursome end up sharing Maggie’s Vancouver loft, and Maggie must decide whether to keep her relationship – and her sexuality – a secret, or reveal who she really is to her well-meaning but naïve and conservative mother.

“Anne Wheeler's sexy, funny, poignant film, from a bright script by Peggy Thompson, is a real charmer, with considerable brains.” – David Noh, FilmJournal International

On the run from their abusive father, two Mi’kmaq brothers befriend a hitchhiker who helps them connect to their identities.

A young gender-nonconforming person finds solace and support in an unexpected location, the workshop of a master tailor.

In a small Nova Scotian town in 1976, 15-year-old Kit (Authors) and his girlfriend Alice (Stone) decide to shake up their go-nowhere existence by hitchhiking to the big city of Sydney to visit Kit's glamorous but unstable mother (Parker). It becomes a journey of self discovery that opens them up to new possibilities for their futures. 

Beautifully shot and featuring a killer '70s soundtrack, the new film from Canadian master Bruce McDonald and playwright and screenwriter Daniel MacIvor shakes up the coming-of-age road-movie concept with wit, charm and a lot of heart. 

"What's not to love about Canuck hipster Bruce McDonald's return to a genre he's a master of – the indie road movie with a distinctly Canadian flavour and endearingly peculiar characters." – Michelle Reid, Victoria Times Colonist
 

Years after dressing up as a deputy sheriff for a western-style photo with his father, Trevor explores issues of gender identity when he tries to recreate the photo as it always should have been.

Having returned home as a result of the pandemic, a young Black comedian decides it’s time to come out to his family.

When gay couple Eric (Cavanagh) and Sam (Shenkman) become the sudden guardians of Scot, a precocious and effeminate young boy, the two professionals must rise to the call of fatherhood and confront the compromises they’ve made in their own lives as gay men working in the world of sports.

Adapted from the novel by Michael Downing, Breakfast with Scot is a heart-warmingly hilarious meditation on the true meaning of family. Scot’s zany antics and disarming self-confidence will inspire audiences young and old to embrace their own — and others’ — unique quirks and differences. This family comedy is a refreshing combination of wry humour and genuine sweetness.

Winner of the Directors Guild of Canada’s Family Feature Film award.

A box office blockbuster and the winner of a whopping 11 Genies, C.R.A.Z.Y. is an infectious, entertaining coming-of-age drama. When Zac Beaulieu (Grondin) is born on December 25, 1960, it becomes clear that he is different from his four brothers. He vies desperately for attention and acceptance from both of his parents, but in particular from his loving and old-fashioned father, Gervais (Côté).

The film follows Zac as life takes him on an epic journey to come to grips with his sexual identity. Buoyed by a vibrant soundtrack, C.R.A.Z.Y. boasts countless moments of true movie magic. It is at once a crowd pleaser and a poignant auteur film.

Courageous and emotionally powerful, Fire follows Sita (Nandita Das) and Radha (Shabana Azmi), two women living in New Delhi who are disappointed with their arranged marriages. While Sita is trapped in a relationship with her cruel and unfaithful husband, Jatin (Jaaved Jaafei), Radha is married to his brother, Ashok (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), a religious zealot who believes in suppressing desire. Lonely and lacking in love and passion, the two women begin to seek solace and friendship in each other, only to discover a passionate romantic love that must be kept secret.

When it was released in the late 1990s, Fire’s incendiary subject matter led to protests and government interventions in India. Years later, the internationally acclaimed film is as seductive and moving as ever.

The film won seven awards at film festivals around the world, including "Most Popular Canadian Film" at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
 

In Patricia Rozema’s fanciful character study, aspiring photographer Polly (McCarthy) lands a job at a Toronto art gallery run by Gabrielle (Baillargeon), who is also a painter. Polly is impressed with Gabrielle’s paintings, but as Polly gets to know her lover Mary (MacDonald) and becomes entangled in their lives, she realizes Gabrielle isn’t exactly who she appears to be.

Though timid on the outside, Polly’s inner life is rich and full of charming fantasies which Rozema brings to life in black & white sequences that punctuate the film with humour and whimsy.

The film won the award for Best First Feature at the Cannes Film Festival, and in 1993 was ranked as one of TIFF’s Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time.

Set against the backdrop of the Canadian Prairies, Alberta-born singer/songwriter Rae Spoon takes us on the musical journey of a trans person’s coming of age in an evangelical household.  

Using interviews, performances and songs, the film traces Spoon’s musical and personal evolution, as the musician shares stories about discovering the truth about oneself and having the courage to live that truth.

"My Prairie Home is melodic, poetic, and beautifully complicated bliss. An utterly beguiling documentary discovery." Glenn Dunks, Film Experience. 

Just weeks before Shane (Martin) is scheduled to leave his small Northern Ontario town to start university in Toronto, his younger sister commits suicide, leaving him struggling to take care of his family in the aftermath. Shane finds solace in the love he shares with his boyfriend David (Legarde-Beacham), but they are forced to keep their relationship a secret from their families and friends.

Torn between his responsibilities at home and the promise of freedom calling to him from the big city, Shane is forced to make a difficult choice after circumstances take a turn for the worse. Fire Song won the Audience Choice award at the 2015 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.

The coming-of-age story gets an imaginative makeover with Stephen Dunn’s debut feature, which mixes affecting drama with whimsical fantasy to tell the story of high school senior Oscar (Connor Jessup), a young man who is struggling with his identity and a turbulent volatile home life with his increasingly volatile father.

Oscar finds an escape from his troubled home life in a passion for special effects and fantasy makeup that he shares with his best friend Gemma (Sofia Banzhaf) and hopes to pursue in college. At home, he creates a different fantasy world, sharing a close bond with the pet hamster (voiced by Isabella Rosellini) who has talked to him since his childhood.

When Oscar meets the cool, handsome Wilder (Aliocha Schneider), he finally starts coming to terms with his own sexuality, which he has repressed since witnessing a terrible act of homophobic violence as a child.

Closet Monster premiered at the Toronto International FIlm Festival, winning the award for Best Canadian Feature Film and was named one of Canada’s Top Ten films of 2015.

John Grayson's most famous film  Lilies is set in a Quebec prison in 1952. The local bishop is brought to the prison to hear the confession of Simon Doucet, a dying inmate. But Doucet in fact has a very different revelation for Bilodeau: he has enlisted his fellow inmates to stage a play set in 1912, when Bilodeau and Doucet were childhood friends, which also tells the tale of his own incarceration.

It's the summer of 1966. The sun is shining and the world is full of possibilities. But for 15-year-old Élise (Fortier), there are issues simmering beneath the surface of her happy family life.

When a shocking discovery drives her mother to leave the family, everyone is stunned. Amid the chaos, Élise decides it's up to her to take matters into her own hands and solve the problems. While her father and two brothers withdraw into their inner world, Élise is not discouraged. Trying to keep her family's troubles a secret, she discovers that no one around her has a life as perfect as it seems at first glance.

A tender and touching story of coming of age in difficult circumstances, Mommy's at the Hairdresser's is a film full of rich, vivid colors that are wonderfully evocative of hot summer days. It's not exactly the summer Élise was expecting, but it will be a summer unlike any other.

A semi-autobiographical story starring Dolan as a young gay man at odds with his mother. Featuring Suzanne Clément.

Katie, a popular university student, has been pretending to have cancer to gain sympathy and gain the life she’s always wanted. Through fraudulent fundraising, she has been able to pay her way through university, and her relationship with her friends and girlfriend has never been better. When she is suddenly asked to produce medical records by her university, the facade she created begins to crumble and she risks being exposed for a fraud.  

A brilliantly told cautionary tale, White Lie premiered at TIFF and was named to the Canada Top Ten list. It was also nominated for 4 Canadian Screen Awards including Best Picture.

“Driven by nuanced, persuasive performances and shot with an urgent, jittery tension, White Lie is a compelling close-up character study.” — Stephen Dalton, The Hollywood Reporter