Canada

Through an initiative of the National Film Board of Canada in collaboration with the Kativik School Board , eight students were selected to document this pivotal year of their lives. To teach them the essentials of filmmaking , the NFB dispatched independent filmmakers Daniel Cross and Mila Aung-Thwin. The result of their collaboration is Inuuvunga, a vibrant and utterly contemporary view of life in Canada’s North.

Fearless and fragile , the students use their new film skills to address a broad range of issues, from the widening communication gap with their elders to the loss of their peers to suicide. Throughout, they portray the co-existence of southern and northern cultures: Kids listen to hip-hop music and engage in traditional fox trapping. A schoolroom floor is the scene of the gutting of a freshly killed seal.

Seamless and startling, Inuuvunga paints a rich and diverse portrait of coming of age in an Inuit town. It dispels the myths of northern isolation and desolation , and reveals instead a place where hope and strength overcome adversity.

When a Kyrgyz man decides to marry, he often abducts the woman he has chosen. Typically, he takes several friends, hires a car, stakes out his bride-to-be’s movements, and snatches her off the street. The woman is taken to the groom’s family home.

A delegation is then sent to her family to inform them of the kidnapping. The abducted woman is kept until someone from her family arrives to determine whether she will marry her kidnapper.

The level of consent and the familiarity of the bride with the groom vary. Sometimes the kidnappings are consensual – the bride is engaged to the groom and agrees to the kidnapping. This documentary follows the dramatic stories of four of non-consensual kidnappings.

Ken Ward was the first Native Canadian to go public with his HIV diagnosis. Seven years later he has developed AIDS and remains a passionate advocate for HIV prevention and treatment. Ward works primarily with First Nations populations, where the epidemic is often compounded by isolation and poverty. He also takes his message into prisons where the infection rate among Native inmates is 17 times the national average. Bibby accompanies Ward as he travels the back roads of the Canadian West, nurturing tolerance and understanding within fearful communities.

Travelogue and ethnography meet in this comedic ghost story about a Canadian Jew wandering through an African culture where “the dead are not dead.” Embarking on a road trip across Cameroon’s most joyous funeral celebrations, the foreigner befriends his guides and becomes increasingly haunted by memories of his own ancestors.

Golden Scars presents an intimate portrait of the realities facing young musicians in Cuba, offering an exclusive look into the unique stories of two young rappers born in Santiago de Cuba. They are neither blood brothers, nor the best friends in the world. What they have in common is a passion for an expressive urban culture that gives voice to their most powerful impulses. Going beyond issues of politics and revolution, the artists share with us their passion and the roots of their musical inspiration. Their spiritual strength as well as fierce convictions drive them to pursue their odyssey despite the tensions and personal struggles with which they are confronted.