Documentary

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Short-Form Series

Joleen Mitton is on a mission to use fashion as medicine for Vancouver’s Indigenous community, showing us what it means to be in service to others.

Documentary | 12 min

Ancestral Threads

A dozen of Canada’s hottest new comics gathered for one hilarious night of standup as part of the Just For Laughs VANCOUVER Festival. These rising stars each headline their own 10-minute episode exclusively for CBC Gem.

Comedy | 4 seasons

The New Wave of Standup

Socially awkward Liam has been home-schooled his whole life. But when he falls in love with a popular one-legged girl, he abandons his mother's suffocating love and enrolls in a state school, entering a world of sex, drugs and social studies.

Teen | 86 min

Adventures in Public School

A Korean woman tries to change her life in a hundred days while living in Vancouver on a working holiday visa.

Documentary | 43 min

Glorious Holiday

Teenage best friends Zoe and Becca set out to build their own fake ID empire, but when business starts booming, their life of crime gets way too real.

Comedy | 1 season

Fakes

Seventeen year old Anjani is still grieving the death of her father, while simultaneously trying to save his shadow puppet studio from being sold by her mother.

Drama | 9 min

Srikandi

Gibbs was the first Black person elected to public office in B.C. and helped guide the colony into joining the Confederation of Canada. CBC reporter Ashley Moliere, who is part-Black, decided to learn about him for Black History Month.

News | 7 min

Uncovering B.C.'s Black history: Who is Mifflin Gibbs?

Written and directed by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn (Never Steady, Never Still), and inspired by a transformative moment in Tailfeathers’ life, THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN weaves an intricately complex, while at the same time very simple, story of a chance encounter between two Indigenous women with drastically different lived experience, navigating the aftermath of domestic abuse.

Drama | 104 min

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open

A Cree filmmaker reaches out to the strongest and smartest Indigenous women she knows to get their insight into “the change.” Through candid stories and much laughter, they delve into ideas of sexuality, ageing, spirituality, and healing around menopause.

Documentary | 18 min

KaYaMenTA: Sharing Truths About Menopause

The Pilgrimage will bestow an exclusive (yet totally inclusive!) insider view into a subversive feminist movement shown through the adventure of the first-ever women-only intentional motorcycle camping weekend on Vancouver Island.

Documentary | 13 min

The Pilgrimage

With the help of his recent recruit, a gang leader takes on an established crime lord in a battle for control over Vancouver's arms and drug trade.

Beeba Boys

Jade Li is a feisty, 20-something Chinese Canadian, trying to achieve that happy medium between giving in to her parent's wishes and fulfilling her own needs and desires - double happiness. Naturally, something's got to give and when love beckons in the shape of Mark, a white university student, the facade of the perfect Chinese daughter begins to slip.

Drama | 87 min

Double Happiness

An elderly Chinese can collector strikes up an unexpected friendship with a house full of friends in East Vancouver.

Documentary | 17 min

A-Yi

A-Yi (Cantonese Subtitles)

When Bethany and Caleb Harding were walking along China Beach on Vancouver Island in 2016, the last thing they expected to find was a message in a bottle. It said, “Biker Bob. If you find me, turn me loose.” Also in the bottle: Bob’s ashes. On the back of the message, another note was scribbled in newer ink:  “It seems like Bob was the type of guy who enjoyed a drink. I took him out for a beer, you should do the same.” Throughout 2016, the bottle washed ashore (at least) three times. Each time, a different person took Bob out for for a celebratory pint, then tossed him back to sea. But who was Biker Bob? And how did he end up travelling the West Coast in a bottle? Biker Bob’s Posthumous Adventure follows the bizarre mystery of Biker Bob and his afterlife visits across Vancouver Island. It’s a truly remarkable story, with twists and turns  - about a man on a motorcycle, a group of strangers who became friends and the enduring power of love.

Biker Bob's Posthumous Adventure

It’s a mystery that spans decades, continents and cultures, and bridges one Toronto woman’s life with her childhood in Japan: what happened to Fukue? In 1988, Jessica Stuart was nine years old. Her family embarked on a cultural odyssey that would greatly influence her life: the Stuarts dug up their middle-class roots in Vancouver’s Jewish community and replanted them in a rural Japanese town called Saku for a year. It was during this absorbing year that Jessica met Fukue, a bright and bubbly girl with rosy red cheeks and an endless smile. Fukue and Jessica became like sisters, spending their days frolicking in the autumn leaves, dancing under snow-blanketed trees, watching hot air balloons illuminate the skyline in spring and sneaking through rice paddies in early summer. Strangely, Fukue never invited Jessica to visit her family home. One day after school, Jessica insisted. Fukue reluctantly brought Jessica to her house; it was a derelict shack on the outskirts of town. Shocked and disturbed, Jessica started to make sense of the name-calling and bullying that Fukue suffered at school. As the Stuarts’ year in Japan came to an end, Jessica and Fukue assured one another they would keep in touch. They became pen pals, writing letters back and forth for two years, until the letters from Fukue stopped — with no explanation. Now a musician in her 30s, Jessica has never forgotten Fukue. Her memories of their time together are beautiful, but haunting. And so her thoughts turn to the unknown. Where is Fukue now? Does she remember Jessica? Why did her letters stop all those years ago?  Now, nearly 30 years after she left Japan, Jessica is going back to find the answers to these questions. She’s going to find Fukue.

Documentary | 21 min

Finding Fukue

Maker of Monsters: The Extraordinary Life of Beau Dick is a portrait of a Canadian art legend, Beau Dick. He was an enigmatic carver from a small remote village on the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. Beau Dick's remarkable masks have been celebrated across the global art scene as vibrant expressions of West Coast Indigenous culture and a sophisticated crossover into the contemporary art world. Dick has an unprecedented ability to tap into the collective memory of his people and breathe new life into age old traditions. Maker of Monsters strives to unearth the factors that made Beau who he was - his deep connection to identity, family, and community, his struggle with addiction - and like a carver chipping away at a block of wood, his story brings truth and understanding out of the woodwork, Maker of Monsters illuminates a man whose art and life continue to transcend expectations and boundaries.

Biography | 92 min

Maker of Monsters: The Extraordinary Life of Beau Dick

This art challenge series showcases 15 artists from across Canada: from painters to illustrators, graffiti artists to puppet makers, featuring a diverse group of artists from all backgrounds.

Reality | 1 season

Crash Gallery

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