An immigrant boy faces difficulty growing up in Toronto's apartment slums.
Social & External
The people behind it
Michael D'Ascenzo
Khaled
Michèle Duquet
Monique
Normand Bissonnette
Little François
Michael Kanev
Ivan
Lynne Deragon
Rosa
John Ralston
Mr. Borquin
Gerry Quigley
Vice Principal Findlay
Joanne Boland
Teacher
Sherif is a young man from Senegal who was working in Libya in 2011 until he was forced to flee. French and American bomb attacks caused death and destruction and the only way to escape the war was the sea. Nick is an American documentarian and actor, who returns to his hometown, in Calabria, Italy. On his doorstep he meets Sherif, a young Senegalese man.
Late at night, pitch black, a car approaches with the lights on. A man walks toward the shore, looking for something. A bunch of illegal immigrants from northern Africa are hiding in the bushes. The man works for the local mobster exploiting the immigrants. They will work at a local mine as modern slaves. Among them is somebody who is not supposed to be there. Sometimes inner conflicts come to the surface. This is the moment to take a look where nobody does, where modern hypocrisy turns other humans into misfits, and not only people from the third world.
Disputed with his father, Jay does everything he can to adapt himself to the city life as an immigrant.
The story of an immigrant woman struggling against old world traditions. Zouina leaves her homeland with her three children to join her husband in France, where he's been living for the past ten years. In a land and culture foreign to her, Zouina struggles against her mother-in-law's tyrannical hand and her husband's distrustful bitterness in an attempt to adjust to her life in exile.
A single middle-aged man trapped in frustration and loneliness in Toronto communicates with a divorced woman, and they help from thousands of miles apart. Dhruv lives a lonely life in Toronto, Canada. He is a forty-year-old student who has discontinued his education and gets by working odd jobs. Sheema is the sister of Dhruv's brother-in-law, looking for someone to take care of her apartment while she and her son return home to visit Bangladesh for a few months. Dhruv, never having met Sheema, agrees to house-sit. Communicating over the phone, they develop a friendship and help each other to solve problems related to the cultural challenges of being Bangladeshi immigrants to Canada.
A beautiful older woman sits by her sister’s hospice bed. When her sister makes a desperate request, she embarks on a late-night journey, in an unfamiliar neighbourhood, to fulfill it. An encounter with a handsome stranger brings surprising returns, and an unexpected ending.
When a Chinese-Canadian college student returns home to Toronto, she visits a Hong Kong cafe she frequented during her childhood. Through eating the food, she is suddenly able to relive suppressed memories of her deceased grandmother. Now she must confront their multifaceted relationship and her own identity to find her peace.
Asylum is a poignant drama that unfolds the harrowing journey of Khadija Jallow and her daughter, Khawla, seeking asylum after a political coup in their home country, The Gambia. As Khadija recounts her story during an asylum interview, the narrative delves into the complexities of love, sacrifice, and the impact of political disruption on a family.
A Mexican farmhand migrates to America to better support his family, but his dream crashes to the ground when his wife and daughter can't meet him across the border.
A girl is on the verge of immigrating and leaving her home behind, while memories of her childhood linger in every corner of the room.
A young woman flees from immigration police, desperate to escape an inevitable fate. As the tension builds in a single continuous shot, her options narrow and freedom slips away.
In the 70s, in the Goutte d'or district, three friends of Algerian origin: Poulou, a failed boxer, Amar, the clumsiest of thieves, and Jibé, a public writer for illiterate compatriots whose lives he knows in detail. As he betrays none of their secrets, he enjoys great prestige in the bistros where he works. The three of them lead a casual life, raising money by illicit means. It's only when Poulou and Amar leave that Jibé understands his isolation and marginalization. The images as well as the sounds help to reinforce the feeling that Paris is a city where he is both at home and a terrible stranger.
A young Venezuelan freedom fighter seeks asylum in the United States, but his heart remains in the fight back home.
A young woman passes an emotional night in the city.
The lives of an American expat and a half Japanese construction worker living in rural Japan are forever changed over the course of three days as they engage in an unexpected romance.
The story of a few untrained construction workers from poor underdeveloped parts of the country, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina or Macedonia, who carry out seasonal work in the highly-developed republic of Slovenia. Far from home, problems arise for the men - with their families, alcohol, the local population's derision and the "real Slovenian workers".
During a beautiful summer, Ivan, a young Russian arriving in Paris, lives in extreme precariousness. He settled in a small camp, but soon he discovered a clandestine life where rode male prostitution is a law. He meets young equivocal men and women over whom he has no hold. Then it's his meeting with Pierre, a young father who will seal his destiny and with which he will commit the irreparable.
The inspiring true-life drama of 17-year-old Niki Janus. After fleeing persecution in Greece, Niki and her family immigrate to West Virginia and begin living the American Dream. Among their friends is Big John Creed, a wise and helpful handyman. But Niki's friendship with him and her belief in freedom unwittingly bring the wrath of the Ku Klux Klan to her very doorstep. Full of courage and passion, Niki challenges the powerful Klan and, at the same time, must overcome her own fears to help the townspeople survive a horrible flu epidemic.
Texas Rhapsody is a powerful, inspiring film set against the oil fields and open skies of West Texas. Inspired by 3 true stories, it follows lives shaped by immigration, grit, and hope - where music becomes shared language. Written and produced by Sam Pfiester and directed by Taylor Stanley, the film features non-actors playing themselves, striking landscapes, and an unflinching look at humanity.
As a talented Turkish swimmer grapples with her mother's terminal illness back home, she navigates the pressures of maintaining her scholarship in the U.S. and her relationship with her American boyfriend. Ultimately, confronting the pain of cultural disconnection and the quest for belonging in a world that feels increasingly distant.
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.
A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Struggling to provide her daughters with a safe, happy home, Sandra decides to build one - from scratch. Using all her ingenuity to make her ambitious dream a reality, Sandra draws together a community to lend a helping hand to build her house and ultimately recover her own sense of self.
West Philadelphia basketball star Sergio Taylor deals with the pressures of fame while his brother and sister have their own issues with ambition.
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
After her stay-at-home husband leaves her, a workaholic lawyer finds that she is not completely up to the tasks of caring for her young son, ailing father and household all by herself.
Mara is a young creative writing professor struggling with problems in her marriage to an experimental musician. One day, she runs into Matt, a charismatic, free-spirited author from her past, when he wanders onto her university campus. Bonded by their shared interests, the two gradually become closer. When Mara’s husband unexpectedly cancels plans to drive her to an out-of-town conference, Matt accompanies Mara on the trip instead. Along the way, the tension surrounding their undefined relationship slowly grows.
Facing eviction in a city her family can no longer afford, a woman plunges into a desperate and increasingly dangerous all-night search to raise $25,000.
Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.
A family of Irish immigrants adjusts to life on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen while also grieving the death of a child.
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.
The eldest son of a ruthlessly tough MMA champion must fight his way out of the abusive cycle his father has continued.
An optimistic, talented teen clings to a huge secret: she's homeless and living on a school bus. When tragedy strikes, can she learn to accept a helping hand?
Deep into Hell Week, a favored pledgee is torn between honoring his code of silence or standing up against the intensifying violence of underground hazing.
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
After reuniting with his mother in Ho Chi Minh City, a family tragedy causes Binh to flee from Viet Nam to America. Landing in New York, Binh begins a road trip to Texas, where his American father is said to live.
