Once Upon a Time...

Red Snow

April 2013 •German

A young lieutenant must persuade a captive resistance fighter to betray his comrades, or enforce a law which states that for every German soldier killed, one hundred civilians must be executed.

Visas and Virtue

May 1997 •English

Europe, 1940. For thousands of Jews, a Japanese diplomat and his wife defy Tokyo and the Nazis, and offer visas, for life.

Satan's Bite

May 2018 •English

Made for straight 8's 2018 competition on one cartridge of super 8mm film with only in-camera edits and no post-production. Premiered on may 14th 2018 at straight 8's Cannes film festival screening.

Dormancy

August 2018 •English

Set in 1932, at the height of prohibition and the growing American eugenics movement, the state of Vermont passes a law allowing for sexual sterilization of "idiots, imbeciles, feeble minded or insane persons likely to procreate." Dormancy follows a young woman and her new husband who work the land and earn a small income herding sheep and working with lumber. The couple is lured into a rural clinic where they subjected to the sadistic goals of the doctors and eugenics field workers. For this modest family, life will never be quite the same...

Princess Clementina

March 1911 •English

King James' agent saves a Dutch princess and marries her as the King's proxy.

Samuel de Champlain: Québec 1603

January 1964 •French

Footage of Québec City locations and the artwork of well-known Quebec animator Frédéric Back are used to tell the tale of Champlain’s life in New France – from his first explorations and settlement to his death in 1635.

Falmeniderit

February 2020 •English

In 1921, Charles, a young Luxembourgish cartographer is sent to Albania as part of a border commission to gather information on the topography and the people of the region. The country has recently become independent, but it does not yet have clearly defined borders. Back in Paris, Charles gets to report to the Conference of Ambassadors. At first, he is overwhelmed by the impressive architecture and the intimidating grandeur of the event. However, he soon learns that the party of self-serving diplomats has little interest in the future of the people he has just met. With no representative of Albania even present, Charles feels the need to speak up for the young country. Despite breaking protocol in doing so, Charles shares an observation with the quarrelling diplomats that allows them to find a peaceful solution to the question of where to draw the urgently needed borders.

The Lion and the Unicorn

January 2012 •English

“The Lion and The Unicorn” is a short film inspired by the heraldic symbols found on the Royal Coat of Arms of The United Kingdom, the lion (representing England) and the unicorn (representing Scotland). The piece uses representations of both alliance and opposition to explore national identity within the context of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence.

Do Útero Ao Túmulo

December 2022 •Portuguese

White Death

October 2014 •Spanish

Impressionist portrait of a landscape forged by tragedy. A ghostly wanderer among the vestiges of a story where 44 young soldiers and a sergeant were pushed to their deaths

Ghosts

September 2022 •English

Three Kiowa boys attempt to escape a government boarding school in 1891, Oklahoma.

James Baldwin Abroad

February 2023 •English

Showcasing three short films by American writer James Baldwin, wherein he muses about race, sexuality and civil rights, among other topics, in Istanbul, Paris and Great Britain.

David Thompson: The Great Mapmaker

January 1964 •English

This short film recreates the story of David Thompson – a man who, over the course of his lifetime, mapped a-million-and-a-half square miles of uncharted territory. His achievement remains unsurpassed.

À La Carte

April 2020 •Vietnamese

In French colonial Vietnam, a nervous young woman has to satisfy the brutal General’s taste for a traditional dish to save her family from capital punishment.

A Piece of Land

June 2019 •Kurdish

Ahmed flees his war-torn homeland of Syria and faces discrimination in Iraq. The people of the new society he joins make it impossible for him to move on and begin a new life.

Hidden

November 2022 •Spanish

A homeless couple looks for a way to get ahead, working and making an effort, while trying to overcome their past.

Woman with an Editing Bench

August 2016 •English

Inspired by the woman who edited "Man with a Movie Camera" (1929), "Woman with an Editing Bench" reveals the personal impact of Stalin’s censorship of cinema on a woman navigating politics, bureaucracy and the impetuous outbursts of collaborators to create something beautiful despite the odds.

The Flying Sailor

June 2022 •English

The Flying Sailor is based on the Halifax Explosion of 1917 when two ships collided in the Halifax Harbour causing the largest accidental explosion in history. Among the tragic stories of the disaster is the remarkable account of a sailor who, blown skyward from the deck of a British cargo steamer, flew over 2 km before landing completely unharmed, but naked except for his boots.

La Bataille du Long Sault ou Dollard-des-Ormeaux

January 1912 •French

Saving Greensboro

Invalid date •English

When lock & dam construction along the Monongahela River threatens to flood the quiet town of Greensboro, desperate citizens seek the help of Glenn Toothman, a new young attorney, to save the place they call home. Glenn's ensuing research unearths the town's surprising significance to American history. But is that knowledge enough to stem the tides of modernity?