Enemy Alien

The bombing of the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, by a nation he knew only by name, thrust nine-year-old Minoru Fukushima into a world of racism so malevolent he would be forced to leave Canada, the land of his birth. Like thousands of other Japanese Canadians, Minoru and his family were branded as an enemy of Canada, dispatched to internment camps in the interior of British Columbia, and finally deported to Japan. Directed by Michael Fukushima, Minoru's son, the film artfully combines classical animation with archival material. The memories of the father are interspersed with the voice of the son, weaving a tale of suffering and survival, of a birthright lost and recovered.

For filmmaker Jari Osborne, November 11 was as unremarkable a day as the next. Watching her father, Alex Louie, during his annual Remembrance Day ritual, Osborne always thought of him as sentimental. However, in discovering her father's involvement in World War II, she uncovers a legacy of discrimination and politically sanctioned racism against British Columbia's Chinese-Canadian community. Sworn to secrecy for decades, Osborne's father and his war buddies now vividly recall their top-secret missions behind enemy lines in Southeast Asia. Theirs is a tale of young Chinese-Canadian men proudly fighting for a country that had always mistreated them. Told in the voice of a thankful daughter, this multi-layered documentary does more than reveal an important period in Canadian history. It pays moving tribute to a father's quiet heroism.

The epic story of the opening of the Canadian West and the drought that brought the Depression in the thirties. This is the saga of a family who left eastern Canada to stake their future in the Prairies. Principle roles are played by Frances Hyland and James Douglas.