John M. Tran

A musician's journey to create a song with some of the biggest stars in the industry. Along the way, he faces up to his painful past, while giving viewers a deep personal insight into the issue of bullying.

From ancient cave paintings to Twitter feeds and deep fakes, propaganda's rapid progression hasn't compromised its potency. Tracing its effective use by religious figures, politicians and marketers, director Larry Weinstein crafts a persuasive study of the mechanics behind propaganda. This fascinating investigation confronts us with timely questions: If we grow up surrounded by propaganda, how do we know what is true? What risks are inherited by a society tricked into their perceptions? Freedom of speech is critical to a democracy's survival, yet demagogues have consistently exploited that freedom to coerce willing supporters. Contemporary artists, including Kent Monkman, Shepard Fairey and Ai Weiwei, analyze their politically motivated work, creatively co-opting the conventions of disinformation that have permeated their respective cultures. As our platforms for spreading ideas continue to expand in a digital age, dangerous lies have never been better disguised.

Damian Abraham goes to Delaware to get an inside look at one of the most violent forms of professional wrestling in the world. Deathmatch is an ultra-violent style of wrestling that includes makeshift weapons, light bulb tubes, and barbed wire to ensure a maximum amount of bloodletting.

From Adolphe Sax’s workshop to the legendary times of jazz and bebop, conquering the classical music stages, forbidden by Nazis and Communists and banned by the Pope: in its 170-year history the saxophone has always been the most seductive as well as the most feared musical instrument. Award-winning Canadian filmmaker Larry Weinstein illuminates and mythologizes the story of the saxophone, its most legendary players and its allegedly longstanding curse about saxophonists falling prey to the instrument’s dark powers.

Director Phyllis Ellis's television program argues that pop culture and alcohol company marketing have created a binge drinking problem for some young women.

Fifteen years in the making, The Complete Works adapts the work of internationally acclaimed avant-garde poet bpNichol. From comic book detective stories and westerns to documentary and magic realism, and from hand drawn animation to computer generated images, The Complete Works wrestles Nichol’s writing off the page and projects it on to the screen. It uses bpNichol’s poetic methods on Nichol himself to create a film that is subversive, entertaining and visually arresting.

It’s the opportunity of a lifetime for artist Phil Richards, who’s been commissioned to create Canada’s official portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for her Diamond Jubilee. Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Hubert Davis follows Richards over months of painstaking preparations, as he works to capture Her Majesty’s likeness and spirit on canvas.

On the eve of her 70th birthday, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood set out on an international tour criss-crossing the British Isles and North America to celebrate the publication of her new dystopian novel, The Year of the Flood. Rather than mount a traditional tour to promote a book's publication, Atwood conceived and executed something far more ambitious and revelatory--a theatrical version of her novel. Along the way she reinvented what a book tour could (and maybe should) be. But Atwood wasn't selling books as much as advocating an idea: how humanity must respond to the consequences of an environmentally compromised planet before her work of speculative fiction transforms into prophesy.

The work of mathematician Donald Coxeter, who continued in the study of geometry when it was being put aside in favour of algebra. An inspiration to both M.C. Escher and Buckminster Fuller.

A look at the natural beauty and environmental crisis surrounding the Great Lakes.

Examined Life pulls philosophy out of academic journals and classrooms, and puts it back on the streets. Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy's power to transform the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it.

A retrospective of the life and work of Glenn Gould, Hereafter synthesizes an incredible wealth of archival material from various sources.

Details the life and work of 19th century Canadian photographer William Notman. Includes interviews with Nora Hague, Roger Hall, Dr. Lilly Koltun, Jeff Nolte, Dennis Reid, Joan Schwartz and Stanley Triggs.

A fascinating clash of philosophy, classical studies and Pop Culture, this film capsulizes a number of "Media Prophet" Marshall McLuhan's conclusions about media.

The story of Gloria, a worldly but crabby teen-boy-band manager and Sherman, a morose rural man as they escape from their lives, experience life-changing travel, and against their will, cling to one another. When they fall in love for the first time, it's an impossible situation, because you can't just change your life overnight. Can you?