Insights
Documentaries that change the way we see the world.
Series Media Partner
Image: All That Breathes, VIFF 2022
1341 Frames of Love and War
Ran Tal's sobering film captures over 50 years of Israeli history through the lens of photojournalist Micha Bar-Am, providing a deep focus on the beauty and horror of humanity as chronicled through his camera.
Adam Ondra: Pushing the Limits
One of the best rock climbers in the world, Adam Ondra prepares for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. An intimate portrait of devotion and dedication to the art of climbing alongside the mental and physical toll it takes along the path to greatness.
All That Breathes
Two brothers are determined to nurse back to health New Delhi's ailing black kites—the megacity's ubiquitous birds of prey. Striving to keep their wildlife rescue clinic afloat, political tensions loom over their neighbourhood as ominously as the smog.
A Fire Inside
During Australia's apocalyptic bushfires in 2019-2020, volunteer firefighters put their lives on the line to save their communities. A clarion call about climate change and an ode to the camaraderie of strangers standing together in the midst of a crisis.
Framing Agnes
Exhuming transcripts from a 1950s study on transgender individuals, Chase Joynt and his collaborators employ re-enactments, reinvention, and personal reflections to examine the trans stories that are told and how—and by whom—they are authored.
Good Night Oppy
Sent on a mission to Mars with a life expectancy of 90 days, the exploration rover Opportunity instead lived for 15 years. With incredible interviews and awe-inspiring re-creations, this documentary doubles as an open-hearted, intergalactic underdog tale.
If You Are a Man
Thirteen-year-old Opio works at a gold mine in Burkina Faso. It’s a harsh existence, and to earn the money for an education that might liberate him from it, the child must take a new, dangerous step in his occupation.
The Killing of a Journalist
Matt Sarnecki explores the murder of a Slovak reporter in a documentary that grips like a true page-turner: among the story ingredients are gangsters, crooked cops, blackmail, hidden thumb drives, and assassination plots via emoji-laced text messages.
The Klabona Keepers
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.
Last Flight Home
In January 2021, filmmaker Ondi Timoner's father Eli told his family that he was ready to die—as soon as California law would allow. A vérité record of the patriarch's last few weeks on earth and a testament to a different measure of fulfillment.
Love Will Come Later
Like many young Moroccans, Samir considers marrying a foreigner the key to a better life in Europe—but his family would rather arrange a marriage for him with a Moroccan woman. When he falls in love with a tourist, he weighs a life-changing decision.
My Imaginary Country
Patricio Guzmán is the poet laureate of Chilean cinema and its foremost historian. Here he returns to his early work of frontline reportage, documenting the recent, extraordinary uprising which promises to transform Chile for the better.
Rebellion
This candid observational documentary gives us the inside story on the rise of Extinction Rebellion, the environmental protest movement which injected new urgency into climate activism. An empowering testament to the inspiring impact of direct action.
Retrograde
Retrograde captures details of American and Afghan soldiers navigating the politics of the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan, focusing on General Sami Sadat, who is left bearing the brunt of responsibility to fight an unwinnable war.
Unarchived
In this zippy doc, we learn about a new way of representing the past, and meet community curators and archivists from across BC whose mission is to share the secret, neglected, and untold histories of this place we only think we know.