Strangers at the Door

This historical drama features the first winter spent in Canada by a family of Irish immigrants deep in the Ottawa Valley. The year is 1830. Because the father is working in a logging camp, the mother has sole charge of the family. Sickness overtakes her, and she dies. The children are left on their own to survive. The film graphically illustrates the enormous hardships endured by the first settlers who had to cope with a climate with which they were unfamiliar. A beautiful, moving film.

Lesia convinces her English-Canadian friend Sarah to perform a Ukrainian dance with her as part of their school's Christmas pageant. However, Sarah's father objects. Angry at the growing number of Ukrainian settlers, he will not allow his daughter to do the Ukrainian dance with Lesia. But in spite of the prejudices of their parents, the girls' friendship remains strong, and they meet in Sarah's barn to celebrate Christmas Day together.

Karen Cho, a fifth-generation Canadian of mixed heritage, discovered that half her family wasn't welcome in the country they called home. While Canada encouraged and rewarded immigration from Europe, it imposed laws that singled out the Chinese as unwanted and unwelcome. Cho's film, In the Shadow of Gold Mountain, takes her from Montreal to Vancouver to uncover stories from the last living survivors of the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act. This dark chapter in our history, from 1885 until 1947, plunged the Chinese community in Canada into decades of debt and family separation. At the centre of the film are personal accounts of extraordinary Chinese Canadians who survived an era that threatened to eradicate their entire community. Through a rich melding of history, poetry and raw emotion, this documentary sheds light on an era that shaped the identity of generations, with deeply moving testimonials, it reveals the profound ways this history still casts its shadow. In the Shadow of Gold Mountain was produced as part of the Reel Diversity Competition for emerging filmmakers of colour. Reel Diversity is a National Film Board of Canada initiative in partnership with CBC Newsworld.