Heritage Minutes: Acadian Deportation
The Acadians are descendants of early French settlers who arrived in Nova Scotia in 1604 and built a distinct culture and society over generations. Their peaceful existence was uprooted in 1755 when over 10,000 Acadians were ripped from their homeland to ensure British rule in North America. This Heritage Minute portrays the deportation through the eyes of an Acadian mother.
Tess Girard
Tess Girard
Casts & Crew
Nancy Kenny
Fabien Melanson
Murlane Carew
Rebecca Ryan
Donovan Colan
Justine Colan
Sean Skerry
Antonine Maillet
Also Directed by Tess Girard
As the Crow Flies follows a group of the top young Royal Canadian Air Cadets as they undergo seven weeks at an elite flight-training camp to get their pilot’s license, which normally takes six to eight months. Casting an especially affectionate eye on her female subjects, filmmaker Tess Girard—herself a graduate of the program—creates a unique and intimate portrait of an extraordinary, yet also very recognizable, group of 17-year-olds as they come of age.
While many have migrated to new spaces during the pandemic, we've all become intimately familiar with the places we call home over the past two years. It's a basic human need, but we're increasingly transient—and in a virtual world, where is our community? Returning to her rural Ontario hometown Horning's Mills and its philosophical residents, filmmaker Tess Girard delicately ponders the spaces we choose to occupy. Conversations with a youthful gravedigger who provides locals with their final resting place contrast with an eccentric elderly couple who plan to save humanity with a bunker of buried school buses known as Ark Two. Girard seeks solace through these interactions while attempting to reconnect to her roots, questioning where she is meant to be. This deeply personal meditation embraces bucolic landscapes down to the smallest detail and grounds itself in quiet, reflective moments.
A filmmaker's exploration of fleeting existence. Filtered through a personal story, "Benediction" is a last attempt to pay homage to those things left and leaving. When faced with the realization of her grandfather's mortality, a young filmmaker journeys to find meaning in the wake of absence and loss. Is she trying to hold on to something that was never there?
At 68, a formerly enslaved Black Loyalist enlists men for the Coloured Corps, an instrumental company in the War of 1812.
A meditative and philosophical exploration of rhythm and synchronization. A complex, artfully constructed and densely layered film that creates an immersive experience that can, at times, make the viewer feel almost in situ with the images and sounds on the screen. Interview subjects span a broad range of disciplines. As individuals and as a society, we have a tendency to keep in step.
Mohawk Chief John Norton and 80 Grand River warriors hold off American soldiers until reinforcements arrive and the Battle of Queenston Heights is won (1812).
An old man's daily routine and the things he encounters.