Supported by Hollywood Suite
November | Sights & Sounds
This month’s collection focuses on the great Canadian soundscape, taking you behind the music. Featuring documentaries and concert films on iconic Canadian musicians and music establishments, these sound stories span across genres such as reggae, hip-hop, indie pop, rock and more. Take a look and have a listen!
Content Warning:
Some of the projects included in this collection deal with topics that may be distressing. Viewer discretion is advised – please check ratings and warnings on individual selections before engaging.
Amplify
Showrunner: Shane Belcourt
Amplify showcases the powerful diversity of Indigenous music in Canada. In each episode of this 13-part anthology series, we meet an Indigenous singer/songwriter as they explore the creation of a new song based on a personal source of inspiration. From songs in Indigenous languages to country and hip-hop, Amplify takes a deep dive into the creative processes of these artists and their strong connections to their Indigenous cultures.
Drop the Needle
Director: Rob Freeman
The story of the Toronto-based record store, Play De Record, and how it became a hub for underground music lovers across Canada.
From the Vaults
Directors: Manfred Becker, Adrian Callender, Sam Dunn, Nicolina Lanni & Ann Shin
From The Vaults is an all-access music journey into a Canadian treasure that few have ever seen: The CBC Archives. Hosted by Amanda Parris and Tom Power, this series features performances and candid interviews with the biggest names in music over the past 60 years, including Sammy Davis Jr., The Who, Leonard Cohen, Shania Twain, and many more. From The Vaults shines a bright light on a remarkable musical story – our own.
Jesse Jams
Director: Trevor Anderson
A young Indigenous trans musician and his rock band bring mumble punk to the Interstellar Rodeo. A rock‘n’roll survival story of a different stripe.
Keyboard Fantasies
Director: Posy Dixon
As a sci-fi obsessed woman living in near isolation, Beverly Glenn-Copeland wrote and self-released Keyboard Fantasies in Huntsville, Ontario back in 1986. Recorded in an Atari-powered home studio, the cassette featured seven tracks of a curious folk-electronica hybrid, a sound realized far before its time. Three decades on the musician – now Glenn Copeland – began to receive emails from people across the world, thanking him for the music they’d recently discovered.
Look At What The Light Did Now
Director: Anthony Von Seck
The journey of Leslie Feist’s Grammy-nominated album The Reminder is chronicled here documentary style, with the curtain pulled back to reveal the intimate partnerships with the people Feist calls her amplifiers.
Montreal New Wave
Director: Érik Cimon
Montreal New Wave is a feature documentary that explores the New Wave cultural current in Quebec in the 70’s and 80’s. The film documents and questions that unknown part of our recent cultural history. Through archives and interviews with key figures of the time, Montreal New Wave wants to shed light on a defining current that still inspires the Quebec cultural scene today.
Paving the Way: The Crack of Dawn Story
Director: Carolyn McMaster
Confronted with racism and attacked by an audience seeded with neo-Nazi sympathizers, Canadian band Crack of Dawn survived it all and made history by way of a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1975 – Becoming the first Black Canadian band signed by a major label. Crossing over the racial boundaries they paved the way for the future of Canadian R&B and reggae musicians. Directed by Carolyn McMaster.
*Selected by Hollywood Suite
Sounds & Pressure: Reggae in a Foreign Land
Directors: Chris Flanagan & Graeme Mathieson
At the height of the golden age of reggae, some of Jamaica’s brightest stars left their homeland behind to shine their light in an unlikely hub of Caribbean creativity: Toronto.
This Movie Is Broken
Director: Bruce McDonald
Part romantic comedy, part Broken Social Scene concert film, This Movie is Broken, from legendary duo Bruce McDonald and Don McKellar does double duty. Bruno’s long-time crush Caroline leaves tomorrow for school in France. So, tonight is Bruno’s last chance. And tonight, as it happens, Broken Social Scene, Caroline’s favorite band, is throwing a big outdoor bash. Maybe if Bruno can score tickets, he can give Caroline a night to remember.
*Selected by Hollywood Suite.
