Loyal to My Image

Through one woman's experience as an adopted person and also as a mother who relinquished her child in 1971, this documentary highlights the many complex issues associated with adoption.

Children of the Night

Silent archival footage of Jewish children during the Holocaust, accompanied by music and poetic narration. A haunting portrait of a future generation lost to cruelty and genocide.

La Rafle des enfants d'Izieu : 6 avril 1944

Nazi Mystery - Twins From Brazil

In 2009 a bizarre story spreads around the globe, reported as fact in the world’s newspapers: Josef Mengele – the infamous escaped Nazi concentration camp doctor, the Angel of Death, may have succeeded in his lifelong goal of creating a blonde, blue-eyed master race. An historian says he has evidence that Mengele’s bizarre experiments on twins may not have ended at Auschwitz, that his efforts to engineer an Aryan master race continued and succeeded while on the run in South America.

The Boxes

While rummaging through dozens of boxes of family photos, films and papers that he has inherited, a man in his seventies, who knowingly had been adopted at birth finds the official papers of his adoption. At that point, in his life, he decides to try to find out his origins and where exactly he came from. But a surprise is waiting. By accident, he learns that he has a sister who lives in England who shares the same father. Amazingly enough, he learns that the old man is still alive. This film the story of this unexpected event and how to always discover the truth.

Saved by Language

Can a language save your life? Yes it can, even an ancient one from the 15th century. Saved by Language tells the story of Moris Albahari, a Sephardic Jew from Sarajevo (born 1930), who spoke Ladino/Judeo-Spanish, his mother tongue, to survive the Holocaust. Moris used Ladino to communicate with an Italian Colonel who helped him escape to a Partizan refuge after he ran away from the train taking Yugoslavian Jews to Nazi death camps. By speaking in Ladino to a Spanish-speaking US pilot in 1944 he was able to survive and lead the pilot, along with his American and British colleagues, to a safe Partizan airport.

Strong Island

Examining the violent death of the filmmaker’s brother and the judicial system that allowed his killer to go free, this documentary interrogates murderous fear and racialized perception, and re-imagines the wreckage in catastrophe’s wake, challenging us to change.

A Quiet Girl

Adopted Montreal filmmaker Adrian Wills discovers, on camera and in real time, the startling truths of his complex beginnings in Newfoundland. Shocking details drive Wills to the core of his birth mother’s resilience, and ultimately his own. In this moving feature documentary that combines 16mm footage and contemporary images with deeply personal conversations, Wills’ voyage transforms from an urgent search for identity into a quest to give a quiet girl her voice.

Brothers at War

BROTHERS AT WAR is an intimate portrait of an American family during a turbulent time.  Jake Rademacher sets out to understand the experience, sacrifice, and motivation of his two brothers serving in Iraq. The film follows Jake’s exploits as he risks everything—including his life—to tell his brothers’ story.

Balancing Acts: A Jewish Theatre in The Soviet Union

Moscow, January 1948. In the bitter cold, a large crowd attends the State Funeral of the Yiddish actor and director Solomon Mikhoels. An official proclamation mourns the death of "a great People's Artist of the Soviet Union." What people are really mourning is the death of the most popular Jewish theater in the Soviet Union, and the man who kept it alive against all odds for over 20 years. No doubt many suspected the truth: he had just been assassinated by Stalin's secret police.

Bratski ples

Savo from Kikinda (Serbia) and his brother recall how they called communal service few years back to empty the septic tank in their backyard. As careless servicemen weren't coming for days, Savo staged his death by drowning in the hole. Communal service sent three trucks while Savo was looking at them from the attic. A story of a small man who fought the system and won, only to become a huge YouTube hero afterwards.

Mans mīļākais karš

Ilze Burkovska, a little girl who is obsessed with stories of World War II and will be a filmmaker in a distant future, lives in Latvia under the totalitarian boot of the Soviets and the ominous shadow of the many menaces and horrors of the Cold War.

Secret Life of Twins

Identical twins are fascinating beings. They are born with the same genetic makeup and develop amazing similarities - and remarkable differences - over the course of their lives. The impressive documentation presents extraordinary pairs of twins and the latest findings from twin research.

Me Mataron 3 Veces

After their mother's femicide, three siblings are separated and forced to live in different places. Years later they gather to raise their voices and fight to be made visible in a country where orphans for femicide are ignored by the state and invisible to society. It's up to them to tell their story.

Ich bin ich

Twins look alike. Sometimes they even think alike. But they're two rather than one. I Am Me is in part about the fact that an individual is more than the sum of his or her characteristics. The fact that a person is neither what other people say about them nor their own description of themselves. And photographs and moving images are nothing more than representations.

Dawnland

They were forced to assimilate into white society: children ripped away from their families, depriving them of their culture and erasing their identities. Can reconciliation help heal the scars from childhoods lost? "Dawnland" is the untold story of Indigenous child removal in the US through the nation's first-ever government-endorsed truth and reconciliation commission, which investigated the devastating impact of Maine’s child welfare practices on the Wabanaki people.

Every Day After

Growing up in Masbate Province in the Philippines, Jary is neglected and shunned since the moment of his birth for one reason-- his appearance. His older sister, Jessa protects Jary through his early years, then takes him in as a young teen, to raise him alongside her own two children in a fragile house on a hill. Jessa seeks out the medical care Jary has been denied since birth. And more, the support to begin his physical and emotional recovery. Every Day After is a 35-minute documentary film that provides a more nuanced look at the complexities of the healing process we don’t often see. And honors the invisible labor of a sister whose love and action make it possible for Jary to experience the everyday joys and struggles of growing up.

Hermanos por accidente

Two sets of identical twins switched at birth in Colombia explore their complex history and new identities in this captivating documentary.

Kuutyttö

A movie about two women who are mothers to the same child, and a child who belongs to two different worlds.

My Flesh and Blood

My Flesh and Blood is a 2003 documentary film by Jonathan Karsh chronicling a year in the life of the Tom family. The Tom family is notable as the mother, Susan, adopted eleven children, most of whom had serious disabilities or diseases. The film itself is notable for handling the sensitive subject matter in an unsentimental way that is more uplifting than one might expect.