BC Spotlight

In Mayumi Yoshida’s tender drama, struggling artist Kana journeys to Tokyo to attend her grandmother’s funeral. While there, she reconnects with her childhood love and stumbles across a family secret that prompts her to reconsider her place in the world.

In the late 1990s, eight-year-old Sasha and her Hungarian immigrant family relocate to a new home on Vancouver Island. Their fresh start is interrupted by increasingly dangerous behaviour from Jeremy, the family’s oldest child.

Jennifer Chiu’s engrossing documentary explores the Hakka — a people, a language, and a culture that have been obscured for far too long. Tracing her own lineage back to from Canada to China, the director creates an illuminating, bravely personal film.

As the death toll on Everest rises, legendary mountaineer Mingma Tsiri Sherpa leads an elite team on a life-threatening mission to retrieve the fallen and restore peace to Chomolungma, the sacred “Mother Goddess of the World”.

An Iranian teenager who recently immigrated to Canada is desperate to make friends at her new high school. Pressured to dye her hair blonde, she unleashes a demonic force rooted within her. A humourous coming-of-age horror from Ava Maria Safai.

Brishkay Ahmed’s documentary explores the resilience and cultural identity of Afghan women through intimate interviews and archival images. Powerful, urgent, and informative, it reminds us that human rights are fragile and must be fiercely protected.

Fifty years after being separated during the Sixties Scoop, four Cree siblings reunite for the first time on a long weekend trip to Banff. Tasha Hubbard’s sensitive drama relates an emotional and life-affirming story of kinship and belonging.

A beautiful portrait of E.J. Hughes, who quietly helped reshape the artistic landscape of British Columbia in the 20th century. This extraordinary documentary explores Hughes’s legacy not only as an artist, but as a devoted, humble human being.

High on LSD and eager to break loose, two teenage boys escape the youth treatment centre that has kept them confined. Four hundred kilometres later, they wrestle with the trauma of their experiences in director Bruce Hodgson’s unsettling debut.

In the middle of a mountain forest above Sarajevo, three boys train for the Olympics in a bullet-ridden luge track abandoned since the 1984 Winter Games. An ambitious, hopeful look at the next generation striving to overcome the sins of their fathers.

Filipino Canadian filmmaker Kent Donguines returns to the Philippines to explore Indigenous Kalinga tattoos. Guided by 107-year-old artist Apo Whang-od, he discovers the strong role it has come to symbolize for Filippino cultural identity worldwide.

In the wake of a personal tragedy, a young man living in Vancouver does whatever he can to avoid reconnecting with his family. An ambient ode to our city, and a sensitive and relatable portrait of life within it.