A short film commissioned by CBC based on a poem by Canadian poet Irving Layton.
Social & External
The people behind it
Irene Beatie
Old Woman
Jon Granik
Narrator
Mona O'Hearn
Shalini Saxena lives a wealthy life-style with her brother Rajesh. She attends college and writes a few poems under the name Seema as part time activity, she meets her fellow collegian an orphan called Arun Kumar who sings for important occasions usually following the words of her poem. Shalini loves Arun wholeheartedly but is unable to express her feelings to him and thus she secretly helps Arun to not only become a popular singer but also rich. And then Arun gets married to the college principal daughter Meena; this breaks Shalini's heart and to make matters worse she is diagnosed with throat cancer and does not have any longer to live.
A reporter doing a story on taxidermy discovers an odd older couple that he becomes convinced are ex-Nazi's. The chief item leading to this belief is an odd puppet theater the couple operate in their basement that re-creates the Nazi era using stuffed creatures.
Eleni asks for a fig on her deathbed. Her husband Kostas goes to the nearest fig tree to get one. Time is running out and Kostas is old. With a fig in his hand, he struggles through a rugged natural landscape to get home in time and fulfil his wife's last wish.
A modern poet Jamal who is against the traditional Urdu Poetry reads the biography of Mir Taqi Mir,one of the greatest poets of the 18th century. And sees Mir's reflection on his personality.
In 1840, Sam Lash heads west for adventure. He meets up with some Mountain Men, and they head for the Rockies to trap beavers and cats. In Taos he meets Lola, a beautiful Mexican girl from a proud and rich family. They fall in love and he persuades her to elope with him. After they get married, Sam is torn between his love for Lola and his yearn for traveling.
In a Canadian mountain resort, Vixen Palmer resides with her naive pilot husband Tom. While he's away flying in tourists, she sleeps with practically everybody including a husband and his wife, and even her biker brother. However, the only one she won't bed is her brother's friend... who is Black.
A spoken word piece about an autistic person experiencing sensory overload in a world that rejects their existence.
Hyo-jeong, a 69-year-old woman, is raped—but few people, including the police, are willing to believe what she says.
17-year-old Asher is split between his charismatic teacher and his brash father, who wants him to take over his scaffolding business.
Almost a decade since larger-than-life glam-rock enigma Brian Slade disappeared from public eye, an investigative journalist is on assignment to uncover the truth behind his former idol.
Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.
William Thatcher, a knight's peasant apprentice, gets a chance at glory when the knight dies suddenly mid-tournament. Posing as a knight himself, William won't stop until he's crowned tournament champion—assuming matters of the heart don't get in the way.
A lonely engineer is intercepted by a young thief, to whom he offers to give all his money with the condition that they share a dinner together. This leads to a conversation that will put their thoughts and faith in life to test.
When a cunning murderer vanishes into the rugged mountains of the Pacific Northwest, pursuing FBI agent Warren Stantin must exchange familiar city streets for unknown wilderness trails. Completely out of his element, Stantin is forced to enlist the aid of expert tracker Jonathan Knox. It's a turbulent yet vital relationship they must maintain in order to survive... and one that becomes increasingly desperate when Knox's girlfriend Sarah becomes the killer's latest hostage!
Northwest Mounted Policeman faces many obstacles in attempting to apprehend a murderer. He miraculously escapes ambush and learns of the dying murderer's name. After a thrilling fight he secures a confession from his man and saves the girl from disaster.
When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters—an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire—to rescue him.
In 1896, three survivors of a whaling ship-wreck in the Canadian Arctic are saved and adopted by an Eskimo tribe but frictions arise when the three start misbehaving.
The story of the first cloned human being - told in her own words: At the age of thirty the world-famous composer Iris Sellin learns that she has an incurable illness. She - a person who wanted to live for ever - does however not give in. In order to preserve her art and also herself, beyond death, for all posterity, she has herself cloned. Her daughter Siri, whom, in this way, she turns into her virtual twin, learns as a child that she is the world's first cloned human being. In fact a blueprint: a blueprint of her mother. From that moment on nothing is as it was before...
Grace lives an idyllic life in a British seaside town, but her world soon comes crashing down when her husband of 29 years tells her he's leaving her for another woman. Through stages of shock, disbelief and anger -- and with support from her son -- Grace ultimately regains her footing while learning it's never too late to be happy.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
A film about existence from the perspective of 20 nameless black females. Each of the women portray one of the characters represented in the collection of twenty poems, revealing different issues that impact women in general and women of color in particular.
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
A look at the lives of two teenage girls - inseparable friends Ginger and Rosa -- growing up in 1960s London as the Cuban Missile Crisis looms, and the pivotal event the comes to redefine their relationship.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
Pete Bell, a college basketball coach is under a lot of pressure. His team isn't winning and he cannot attract new players. The stars of the future are secretly being paid by boosters. This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate and has pressures from all around.
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
Carla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a multi-millionaire for a visit. The town lays out the red carpet expecting big things from Carla, only to learn that her sole purpose is to see Serge Miller killed...
In the 1990s, an immigrant single mother raises her teenage son in the Canadian suburbs, determined to provide a better life for him than the one she left behind in South Korea.
While Native American Wolf is being pursued by the FBI for having taken the law into his own hands, when his mother was raped and killed on their reservation he crosses paths with Cash, a down and out musician who is coping with the end of his marriage. An unlikely friendship develops, as they ride together towards the Teton mountain range, where Wolf will spread his mothers ashes.
A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.
An aging Hollywood star, Joe Scott, lives a life of narcissistic hedonism, observed by his laconic personal assistant, Ophelia. The death of his childhood best friend, Boots, takes our protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970s Britain.
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.
Young, beautiful, talented Alexis Winston comes from nowhere to become a figure skating superstar. But her rise to stardom isn’t easy. She has to push herself, reinvent herself, and most painfully of all, leave her hometown boyfriend behind. When a tragic fall leaves her blind, she needs someone to believe in her, to love her; someone to convince her she has the strength to skate and dream again.