Ignite Year-Round Archive

In this moving, delicate and raw autobiographical coming-of-age movie, Tracey Deer harks back to her personal rebellion at the age of 12, in the midst of the standoff between Mohawks and settlers in Oka, Quebec that raged 30 years ago this summer.

Facing the devastating economic impact of the pandemic, city redevelopment, and racism, Chinatowns in New York, Montreal and Vancouver find innovative ways to fight back, resisting erasure to keep these important communities thriving.

The inventor of the California Roll, chef Hidekazu Tojo helped bring sushi to mainstream popularity through his renowned Vancouver restaurant, Tojo’s. The Chef & the Daruma is a mouthwatering film touching on immigration, identity, and reinvention.

An eye-opening plea to care for the thing that feeds us, balances the climate, and sustains life on earth: soil. Common Ground unveils the potential of regenerative farming, to show us how saving the soil can help save us, and the planet, along with it.

Counted Out investigates major current issues like political polarization, racial and economic inequity, a global pandemic, and climate change through an unexpected lens: math. To inspire students to look at the world critically, this is the film to see.

Amin says the diary where he documented what happened to him during the Soviet-Afghan war is written in Dari, a language he now only barely recollects. In Flee, Jonas Poher Rasmussen illustrates how the incomplete nature of this story shapes Amin’s life.

I am Greta tells the story of the Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg through compelling, never-before-seen footage. Her perseverance caught the attention of the UN, and inspired massive student movements worldwide.

Shot over five years, Into the Storm follows Jhonny Guerrero, a scrappy Peruvian teen who taught himself to surf with a broken board, and the trials and struggles he faces training to become a professional surfer in Peru.

Meet passionate teenage innovators from around the globe who are creating cutting-edge solutions to confront the world’s environmental threats.

The Klabona Keepers is a fierce account of the Tahltan Nation’s struggle to protect the Klabona Sacred Headwaters from commercial mining. Interspersing verité cinematography with interviews, the film documents the tactics used by the land defenders.

Vancouver’s Harry Jerome was Canada’s most record-setting track and field star. Compelling interviews and archival footage tell the story of what Jerome’s own coach called “the greatest comeback in track and field history.”

A struggling opera composer is forced to take in his eccentric orphaned niece. Despite their opposite personalities, they soon see that they may need each other more than they thought, and begin to believe in second chances.

Image © Immina Films and Danny Taillon

In 2043, after war in North America, children are taken by the State. When her daughter is taken, Cree mother Niska joins the Night Raiders to free the children in this powerful Indigenous sci-fi film of resistance, and hope.

With stunning cinematography made for the big screen, Our Blue World dives deep into the global water crisis, showing how traditional knowledge has a role to play alongside innovation, as we look to protect water for the future.

Many films cover the problems with single-use plastics, very few cover the solutions. Plastic Earth explores not only a fuller picture of the problem, but also the many innovative solutions being developed to tackle it.

Undaunted by paltry audiences at his DIY films on the Tl’etinqox Reserve, teenage Tyler remains convinced that he’s bound for bigger things. But when a DV tape resurfaces that casts new light on his family’s history, Tyler must unearth difficult truths.

Red Fever reveals the many ways Indigenous peoples have left their mark on culture we all share, including fashion, sports, politics, the environment and more. This film may just change the way students understand the world.

Intertwining narratives concerning residential school survivors, including Orange Shirt Day founder Phyllis Jack-Webstad, and Indigenous peoples’ relationship with imperiled wild Pacific salmon, Sean Stiller’s documentary is a testament to resilience.

Rosie is an orphaned Indigenous girl sent to live with her reluctant street-smart aunt. Rosie soon transforms the lives of the colourful characters she meets and together, they find acceptance and home with her in a chosen family of glittering outsiders.

An innovative and eye-opening collection of animated and experimental Canadian shorts. A collection that inspires new approaches to the moving image on screen and re-imagines compelling perspectives, histories, memories and formative life experiences.

Showcasing six innovative, award-winning and inspiring animated Canadian shorts, this collection offers a mesmerizing and emotional collection of diverse animated films — unlike anything many students have ever seen.

Indigenous nations across Canada and the USA are working together to restore buffalo herds to the land. This doc explores the profound cultural, spiritual, and powerful ecological impacts of the buffalo’s remarkable return.

Among Titanic’s 705 survivors were six Chinese men whose stories were lost due to America’s Chinese Exclusion Act. Executive produced by James Cameron, this documentary grants them their rightful place in history by uncovering their sacrifices.

Unarchived is a feature documentary that explores the diverse, underrepresented and erased histories in British Columbia. We’ll follow local Knowledge Keepers and organizations across the province as they subvert the dominant historical narrative in our museums and archives, and fight for a more inclusive history.

Vancouver destroyed its historic Black community in the 1960s. The legacies of this thriving community are still felt, and a new generation of Black Vancouverites work to rebuild, facilitate Black joy and redefine what it means to be African-Canadian.