Movie Documentary
Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.
Canada Canada
Similiar movies
Now Is the Time
A 1969 documentary on the carving and raising of the first Haida totem pole in over a century becomes the springboard for a film that restores fullness and richness to the larger story of a nation’s resurgent identity.
Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child
This short documentary is a moving tribute to Richard Cardinal, a Métis adolescent who committed suicide in 1984. Taken from his home at the age of 4 due to family problems, he spent the rest of his 17 short years moving in and out of 28 foster homes, group homes and shelters in Alberta. A sensitive, articulate young man, Richard Cardinal left behind a diary upon which this film is based.
Beans
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.
There's Something in the Water
Elliot Page brings attention to the injustices and injuries caused by environmental racism in his home province, in this urgent documentary on Indigenous and African Nova Scotian women fighting to protect their communities, their land, and their futures.
The Hollow Child
Samantha has lived her whole life in different foster homes. Now living in a small town, she never feels like she quite fits in, even with her own current foster family who might adopt her, or the boy who follows her around doing her classwork. So, it’s perhaps natural that she doesn’t know what to do with a curious tagalong little sister named Olivia. One day, Sam callously ditches Olivia, who wanders off into the woods on her own and disappears.
Anything Is Possible
Ethan Bortnick plays the leading role as Nathan,a young boy who's separated from his mother when she goes missing during a trip to Japan to help after the tsunami. The movie explores issues like homelessness, military family life and adoption. Ethan co-wrote the music with Grammy award winning songwriter and producer, Gary Baker and will also score the entire film. Ethan will become the youngest actor to co-write the soundtrack and play the leading role in a feature film. When Army lieutenant, MARGARET PETERS (Lacy Chabert) goes missing during a tsunami rescue mission in Japan, back in Detroit, her son, NATHAN (Ethan Bortnick), discovers that his father GEORGE (Jonathan Bennett) isn't his biological father. Learning that Child Care Services could take him away, Nathan runs away before his father can explain. While George goes on a frantic search, Nathan takes to the streets of Detroit where he meets CAPTAIN MILES, a homeless Iraqi war veteran. Captain Miles takes the boy under his ...
Dance Me Outside
Explores the sensitive, and tense, relationship between life on an First Nations reservation and life in the outside world. When Native Canadian Silas Crow is forced to write a personal essay in order to get a much-desired job, he tells the story of the rape and murder of an Indian girl by a drunken thug. When the killer received a lenient two-year sentence for manslaughter, the First Nations community felt shock and anger—and tried desperately to deal with the after-effects of this lack of justice.
One Dead Indian
Stoney Point Natives assemble at Ipperwash Provincial Park for what began as a peaceful protest.
Luna: Spirit of the Whale
When a government representative announces that he intends to reunite an orphaned orca with his pod by transporting him hundreds of miles over dry land, the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations Band, which believes that the spirit of their late chief resides in the majestic ocean mammal, does everything within their power to thwart the controversial plan. As the community grows increasingly divided over how to handle the situation, a young aboriginal boy wrestles with his own identity and new Band chief Mike Maquinna prepares for the trial by fire that could shape his entire future.
The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
When Áila encounters a young Indigenous woman, barefoot and crying in the rain on the side of a busy street, she soon discovers that this young woman, Rosie, has just escaped a violent assault at the hands of her boyfriend. Áila decides to bring Rosie home with her and over the course of the evening, the two navigate the aftermath of this traumatic event.
Mesnak
Dave, an urban aboriginal in his early twenties, is a Montreal actor. His adoption at the age of 3 has erased all memory of his Native culture. When he receives his first-ever contact with his biological mother through a photo in the mail, Dave leaves for Kinogamish, the reserve where he was born. The reunion does not unfold as expected and Dave becomes disoriented, confronted with a world that seems hostile and foreign. His unplanned return to this desolate community causes upheavals and chain reactions, while dredging up a painful past scarred by secrets and lies.
Mistress Madeleine
Part of the Daughters of the Country series, this film, set in the 1850s, unfolds against the backdrop of the Hudson's Bay Company's monopoly of the fur trade. In protest, some Métis engage in trade with the Americans. Madeleine, the Métis common-law wife of a Hudson's Bay Company clerk, is torn between loyalty to her husband and loyalty to her brother, a freetrader. Even more shattering, a change in company policy destroys Madeleine's happy and secure life, forcing her to re-evaluate her identity.
Barbra Streisand: Back to Brooklyn
Barbra Streisand was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. Still in her teens, she left home to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress. She went on to conquer the worlds of stage, screen, and music, winning the Tony Award, multiple Oscars, Emmys, and selling out concerts around the world. She's the most successful female recording artist in popular music history and the only singer to have a number-one album in five consecutive decades. This concert video, recorded on October 11th & 13th, 2012, captures Barbra's triumphant return to her hometown. With special guest Chris Botti and a thrilling duet with her son, Jason Gould, Barbra achieves yet another career milestone, proving along the way that you can take the girl out of Brooklyn, but you can't take Brooklyn out of the girl!
Similiar TV Shows
The Fosters
Stef Foster, a dedicated police officer, and her partner Lena Adams, a school vice principal, have built a close-knit, loving family with Stef's biological son from a previous marriage, Brandon, and their adopted twins, Mariana and Jesus. Their lives are disrupted in unexpected ways when Lena meets Callie, a hardened teen with an abusive past who has spent her life in and out of foster homes. Lena and Stef welcome Callie and her brother, Jude, into their home thinking it's just for a few weeks, until a more permanent placement can be found. But life has something else in store for the Fosters.
I Am Cait
Caitlyn Jenner's first public appearance since her transition included making an impassioned, heartfelt speech at the ESPY Awards about the need for understanding transgender issues and "accepting people for who they are." For her part, Caitlyn -- formerly known as Bruce Jenner -- eagerly welcomes the responsibility to educate people. Follow Caitlyn Jenner's life as a transgender woman, telling her intimate story as she seeks out her "new normal," while offering a better understanding of many of life's challenges. Most of all, Caitlyn looks forward to living for the first time as the person she feels she was born to be. The docu-series also explores what her transition means for the people closest to her, including her children and stepchildren, and how those relationships are affected.
Life Unexpected
16-year-old Lux was given up for adoption at birth but never adopted. When she is put back into the custody of her estranged-since-high-school birth parents, Cate and Baze, the three form an unlikely family.
Long Lost Family
Follow the touching stories of people who have suffered a lifetime of separation and are yearning to be reunited with their birthparents and biological families or find children they had to place for adoption long ago.
The Lying Game
Emma, a kind-hearted foster kid who can't catch a break, finds out she has an identical twin sister, Sutton, who - unlike Emma - was adopted by wealthy parents and is seemingly living an ideal life. After their initial meeting, Sutton talks Emma into stepping into her life for a few days while she pursues a lead on their birth mother. Initially excited to do this favor for her sister, Emma soon learns that Sutton has gone missing and could be in trouble. Now, Emma must decide whether to come clean to Sutton's family and risk her own safety in the hope of uncovering her twin sister's true whereabouts, along with the truth about why they were separated in the first place.
Canada: A People's History
The complete landmark documentary series follows events from pre-history to 1990. Charting the country's past, this series chronicles the rise and fall of empires, the clash of great armies and epoch-making rebellions. The vibrant story is one of courage, daring and folly, told through the personal testimonies of the everyday men and women who lived it — trappers and traders, pirates and prospectors, soldiers and settlers, saints and shopkeepers.
Snow Wolf Family and Me
Gordon Buchanan travels to the remote Canadian Arctic in search of wolves that have never seen people.
Ties That Bind
Allison McLean is a tough and experienced police detective, mother and wife in suburban Seattle. When she and her police partner must arrest her brother for aggravated assault, her world drastically changes as he's convicted and sent to prison, leaving his two teenagers teetering on the brink of foster care. Ultimately, she takes them into her home, ending up with four teenagers to raise.
8th Fire
8th Fire: Aboriginal Peoples, Canada & the Way Forward is a Canadian broadcast documentary series, which aired in 2012. Featuring television, radio and web broadcasting components, the series focused on the changing nature of Canada's relationship with its First Nations communities. The television component aired as a four-part documentary series hosted by Wab Kinew as part of CBC Television's Doc Zone, while radio programming devoted to First Nations themes aired on a variety of CBC Radio series and the web component included content from a variety of contributors, including news coverage by other CBC News reporters and a series of short films by 20 First Nations, Inuit and Métis reporters and filmmakers. The series was a shortlisted nominee for the Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary Program, and for Best Cross-Platform Project, Non-Fiction, at the 2013 Canadian Screen Awards.
Vietnam: 50 Years Remembered
The history of U.S. involvement is told in this 7 part documentary series featuring personal stories from veterans and detailing the battles, strategy, and politics of a war that consumed multiple U.S. Presidents. A chronicle of the tragedy that tested the strength of our country and forever changed the social and political landscape of the world.
9 Months That Made You
Discover the thrilling story of how you were made, from the moment of conception to the moment of birth 280 days later. This breakthrough series follows the gestation process, using state-of-the-art CGI to reveal the most exquisite biological choreography found in nature. Across three episodes we chart how 100 trillion cells come together to make each of us a unique individual. The way you smile, the environments you thrive in, the color of your eyes – everything about you depends on an elaborate dance of biology that happens hidden away in the womb, all timed to precision. But by using the latest scientific research and advances in medicine, we can now reveal this hidden world in forensic detail. Zeroing in on milestones along the road to creation – where critical events in your miraculous assembly can change your life forever.
Frontier
The chaotic and violent struggle to control wealth and power in the North American fur trade in late 18th century Canada. Told from multiple perspectives, Frontier takes place in a world where business negotiations might be resolved with close-quarter hatchet fights, and where delicate relations between native tribes and Europeans can spark bloody conflicts.
The Day I Picked My Parents
Ten foster children who are part of a revolutionary program operated by the nonprofit organization Kidsave search to find their forever home.
Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches
An intuitive young neurosurgeon discovers that she is the unlikely heir to a family of witches. As she grapples with her newfound powers, she must contend with a sinister presence that has haunted her family for generations.
Little Bird
As part of a racist government policy now known as the Sixties Scoop, Bezhig Little Bird is removed from her home in Long Pine Reserve in Saskatchewan and adopted into a Montréal Jewish family at the age of five, becoming Esther Rosenblum. Now in her 20s, Bezhig longs for the family she lost and is willing to sacrifice everything to find them.
You Are on Indian Land
The territory of Akwesasne straddles the Canada-U.S. border. When Canadian authorities prohibited the duty-free cross-border passage of personal purchases - a right established by the Jay Treaty of 1794 - Kanien'kéhaka protesters blocked the international bridge between Ontario and New York State.