Les Autres Chemins

Since her debut at the age of 18, musician, civil rights campaigner and activist Joan Baez has been on stage for over 60 years. For the now 82-year-old, the personal has always been political, and her friendship with Martin Luther King and her pacifism have shaped her commitment. In this biography that opens with her farewell tour, Baez takes stock in an unsparing fashion and confronts sometimes painful memories.

This short documentary is a tribute to the unknown father. Emerging filmmaker Danic Champoux poses the question "How many men still have to uproot themselves and leave their families to get work?" as he sets out to search for his own father. He wonders about these men who are labourers, itinerants, and mostly nameless, but who are all exemplary providers. But at what cost? This film was produced as part of the Libres Courts collection of first-time documentary shorts.

In this documentary shot at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa during a troop deployment to Afghanistan, children and teens talk about the particular circumstances of having soldiers as parents. Directed by Claire Corriveau, Children of Soldiers lifts the veil on a reality shared by thousands of young Canadians, and on the difficulty of finding a balance between loyalty to the troops and staying true to themselves.

Boxeo Constitución shows how, of all places, in a damp, dark boxing hall under the tracks of a train station, young people brace themselves against the social Darwinism of the social crisis. The film follows two teenage boxers from the forgotten suburbs of Buenos Aires on their way to their debut bout. It will be decided in the ring whether they can continue to hope that one day they will leave the lack of prospects in their neighborhood behind in order to "be someone". Youthful enthusiasm meets harsh reality when some of her colleagues form a boxing union.

Silence - the stuff of assumptions and confusion - is a legacy inherited by many grandchildren of Japanese Americans interned during WWII. Shortly after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Masuo Yasui, a respected figure of Hood River Valley, Oregon was arrested by the FBI as a "potentially dangerous enemy alien." In A FAMILY GATHERING, Lise Yasui, a granddaughter that Masuo never knew, shows that courageous journeys into the past can bring greater understanding of family and personal history to the present.

This documentary is also part reality show. A dozen volunteers are set a mission to fulfil, but one by one they are captured by interrogators. They are held for a weekend, blindfolded and shackled and subjected to the same interrogation techniques talked about in the documentary. One by one they crack and tell their captors everything they know. They are made to talk!

The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.

A poet boxer. A child under the sun in a cotton field. The persistence of a young amateur boxer. A woman. Tenderness and absence. A portrait of a man with the wit and wisdom of those who have faced death.

Animation pioneer Evelyn Lambart recalls arriving at the NFB in the 1940s, her celebrated collaborations with Norman McLaren and her approach to her solo work.

Portrait documentary of the Swedish comedic actor Thor Modéen full of clips from his greatest roles.