Don Owen
Seventeen year old Izzy Marks lives in Toronto with her divorced mother and finds her life boring and directionless. Meant to be a sequel to Don Owen's acclaimed 1964 film "Nobody Waved Good-bye", "Unfinished Business" looks at life two decades later for Peter and Julie's (Peter Kastner and Julie Biggs) daughter Isabelle "Izzy" Marks (Isabelle Mejias). Curious, funny and intelligent, 17 year old Izzy feels the frustrations of her limiting environment and the pull of a more exciting, larger world. She meets passionate anarchist wannabe Jessie 'Fixit' (Peter Spence) and is quickly drawn into his free living alternative lifestyle. Much to the displeasure of her once free-thinking parents and friends.
A portrait of a small Ontario town, this film introduces its audience to the people of Holstein by filming them in the old-fashioned general store, the blacksmith's shop and the town granary. Old-time residents reminisce, while old-fashioned sleighs travel down the main road bordered by beautiful old frame houses.
This film goes no farther west than Toronto. The Indian is Robert Markle, from a family of Mohawk steel workers. The cowboy is his longtime art associate, Gordon Rayner. Both are Toronto artists and art teachers, sharing also an interest in jazz: Rayner plays the drums, Markle the electric piano. This film is a study of their lifestyle, their mutual interests and their friendship.
Set in mid-winter Montréal, a mentally unstable young man becomes involved with two women, which fuels his paranoia, forcing him to commit criminal acts.
The story of two young women who go to the city to work in a dress factory, and who share a room to ease their expenses and their loneliness. The film shows the currents that brought them together and the facets of their natures that first made them seem compatible but eventually drove them apart. Their story reflects, to a degree, the situation of anyone who has ever shared the life of another.
Directed by Don Owen, this follow-up to Graham Parker’s 1964 filmJoey revisits the life of the eponymous young boy, who at the age of seven had trouble finding adoptive parents, most of whom look for children who are still in their infant years. This film catches up with Joey after he has found a home, and reveals some of the problems he faces in adjusting to the routines of family life.
A dizzying view of Manhattan in the 1960s, the tallest town in the world, and the men who work cloud-high to keep it growing. They are the Mohawk Indians of Kahnawake, near Montréal, famed for their skill in erecting the steel frames of skyscrapers. The film shows their nimble work, high above the pavement, but there are also glimpses of the quieter community life of the old Kahnawake Reserve.
A 1964 documentary portrait of Cohen in his pre-musician days as a poet and stand-up comedian.
In Nigeria, a young Canadian doctor serves in a local mission hospital and learns much from the experience. Stationed abroad under the Canadian University Service Overseas Plan, Dr. Alex McMahon and his schoolteacher wife find every day a fresh challenge. An interesting study of intercultural help.
18 year-old Peter lives with his parents in a middle-class Toronto suburb and rebels constantly against their imposed middle-class goals and conventions and the materialist values they represent. He constantly mocks and belittles his family with his only real ally being his girlfriend Julie. Peter's relationship with his parents reaches its boiling point when he borrows his father's new car without permission and is left by him to spend the night in jail after Peter is arrested for reckless driving. Peter runs away from home and moves into a rooming house, and eventually gets a shady job as a parking attendant. His relationship with Julie becomes exponentially more complicated and he finally realizes that being alone in the real world is much harder than he ever imagined.
Toronto is regarded as the third largest jazz centre in North America. This film features a cross-section of jazz bands of that city: the Lenny Breau Trio, the Don Thompson Quintet and the Alf Jones Quartet. Their styles show creative self-expression, hard work, and improvisation.
