Canada Vignettes : St. Laurent Pilgrimage

Tom Sukanen was an eccentric Finnish immigrant who homesteaded in Saskatchewan in the 1920s and '30s. He had a dream. He spent ten years building and moving overland a huge iron ship that was to carry him back to his native Finland. The ship never reached water. This film, based on a true event, recreates the story of a man of passion and tenacity.

The story of the Jesuit martyrs who lived with the Wendat converts in the region near what is now Midland, Ontario. The film is of wide interest since it reconstructs a period of Canadian history, especially of Indigenous life, at the very beginning of European settlement. The village and the Jesuits' buildings are exact models from archeologists' reconstructions. The story is based on the Jesuit Relations, the actual journals of mission life that still make for thrilling reading.

Second Stories follows on the heels of the enormously successful First Stories project, which produced three separate collections of short films from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. First Stories films have gone on to win many awards, both collectively and individually, in national and international festivals and competitions. Second Stories builds on that success by providing a continuum of training for three of the twelve Indigenous filmmakers who delivered such compelling documentary shorts. Through this unique mentoring and training process, Second Stories filmmakers have a chance to hone their storytelling craft (in a professional production experience), while working with a strong creative team to assist in the realization of their half-hour documentaries. Each of the filmmakers selected were assigned a story consultant/story editor and an NFB producer. As was the case with First Stories, the emphasis is on enabling Indigenous filmmakers to tell the stories that are important to them and their communities. The partners in this special initiative are CBC, APTN, SCN, SaskFilm and MANITOBA FILM & SOUND. Honour Thy Father Honour Thy Father is a poignant look at cultural misunderstanding and its toll on a family's grief. The loss of his father was a devastating blow for filmmaker Gerald Auger. The local Anglican priest refused to allow the family to bury their father in the traditional Cree way - with the drum and the smudge - because he was buried on Anglican church property. Gerald sets out to resolve his hurt and anger by seeking official church approval to honour his father traditionally; his path leads him to some unexpected places.