Documentary

Short Films

Films

Day’s Lee looks at the history of the Chinese-Canadian restaurant and its impact on local Montreal culture through her memories of her own family’s restaurant on Parc Avenue and others who ran the city’s scene in the 1950’s.

Season 20 | Meet and Eat at Lee's Garden

Absolutely Canadian

Three Asian Canadians recall hiding, discarding and forgetting their lunches — the ones their classmates called “weird,” “smelly” and “funny-looking.”

Documentary | 1 season

Lunchbox Dilemma

The story of Toronto’s bizarre 1985 “patty wars,” when Jamaican-Canadian bakers went head-to-head with the federal government over the name of their beloved beef patty.

Documentary | 18 min

Patty vs. Patty

A talented but abrasive chef struggling with personal demons and professional pressures while trying desperately to save the restaurant he's sacrificed everything in his life to build.

Drama | 84 min

Nose to Tail

After nearly 40 years, the family-run Koto Japanese Restaurant in Campbell River, B.C. is closing. Over the course of its last day, the community says goodbye.

Documentary | 15 min

Koto: The Last Service

Chef Leah Janzen, program chef at Kitchen 541 Eatery and Exchange in the downtown core of Hamilton, Ontario has made it a life mission to provide a place for anyone in need of food, shelter or warmth within the poverty-stricken community. She sets out to accomplish this by serving first-class food made with love and quality ingredients in the hopes to change the way people view what it means to sit at the table and feel like you belong.

541: A Place For The Community

Canadian Reflections

Sixty-six-year-old farmer Jim Giffen feared his family farm would have no successor until he met his best friend, Jon, a quiet 23-year-old electrician who secretly dreamed of one day owning a farm. For many young people, farming doesn’t feel like a realistic career path. With all kinds of financial hurdles, it has become an impossible industry to break into. For many aging farmers, whose children may not be interested in carrying on the family legacy, the reality that their farm may be on its last legs is a hard pill to swallow. Until Giffen met Jon, he feared he would lose Edencrest Farms. The Giffens have been a staple in the Minesing, Ontario, farming community, since the early 1900s, a fact of which Jim is very proud. With diaries from his farming ancestors dating back to 1914, Jim’s connection to his roots is strong, and his passion for the lifestyle even stronger. In fact, Jim hasn’t left the family farm in over 25 years. But with his four children uninterested in the family business, the question of who would takeover the property was left unanswered. Then, along came Jon. Jon’s mother, a local customer of Edencrest, got her 13-year-old son his first summer job picking vegetables at the farm. From the minute he started, Jon was hooked. He loved the smell of manure just as much as he loved the smell of hay, and would seize any opportunity to drive the tractor. With each passing summer, Jon’s respect for farming and his love of Edencrest grew, and Jim noticed. A friendship began to form between the old farmer and eager, young lad. When Jon turned 16, Jim asked him if he wanted to take over the farm, something Jon had never dared dream of. But there was one major hurdle — the capital gains tax. For Jim to transfer the farm to Jon, a non-family member, they would face a tax of half a million dollars. Neither Jon nor Jim could afford that. It seemed like the dream might be over, until they discovered an alternative, little-known option: a leasing program. Jim would sell the farm to Jon piece by piece and work with Jon, like Jim’s own father had done with him, to guide Jon into his role as the owner of Edencrest Farms. Now Jon, nervous and excited, has applied for his first loan to start the leasing program and embark on this lifelong journey. Working two full-time jobs to pay for the land, and juggling a serious relationship, Jon has many struggles ahead of him, but with his best friend and teacher by his side, he hopes he can make both of their dreams come true.

Documentary | 16 min

Counting on a New Crop

A vengeful man poisons a glass of wine intending to kill a former colleague at a fundraising event, but his plot is compromised when he realizes there has been a mix-up - placing the lives of everyone present in danger.

Red Wine

James Whetung is reclaiming his Indigenous right to cultivate wild rice on Ontario’s Pigeon Lake, but local homeowners are furious about large-scale changes in the waterways - so there’s going to be a dust-up.

Season 4 | Cottagers & Indians

CBC Docs POV

Follow Anishinaabe chef Shawn Adler into nature as he forages for unique wild foods that grow all around us. From wild ginger to burdock root, Shawn explores — and cooks with — hidden delights that can be found across Canada in each season of the year.

Forage

A group of culinary apprentices navigates their way through one of the best restaurants in the world, Mugaritz.

Documentary | 78 min

Stage: The Culinary Internship

Burgundy winemaking legend Pascal Marchand faces his greatest challenges during the catastrophic 2016 season.

Grand Cru

A look at the changing face of Canadian farms from the perspective of local farmers, Chinese immigrants, and investors.

Season 2 | My Farmland

In a city known for nightlife and haute cuisine, Dish Pigs tells the untold stories of dishwashers in Montreal. Through intimate first-person accounts and gritty visual storytelling, the film unearths the deeper truths about the working-class economy that lie just beyond the doors of your favourite restaurant kitchens. Our story focuses on the lives of three eccentric dishwashers, each navigating their own day-to-day struggles while working nights in the dish pit. 34-year-old Shawn began working at Montreal restaurant Le Bremner after a family tragedy left his life in ruins in 2016. Under the guidance of Chef Danny Smiles, Shawn is finally putting his life back together. We meet 61-year-old Claude, a veteran dishwasher - he’s been working in the restaurant industry for 40 years. Claude spends his free time acting as his neighborhood’s unofficial handyman and helping people in his community with their daily tasks. Then there’s 26-year-old Ali, a Texas native who came to Montreal to broaden her horizons and introduce Montrealers to a whole style of dancing. Ali has a newfound philosophy on life, thanks to her work in the dish pit. Performing the tasks no one else wants to do - cleaning nasty messes, scraping remnants of people’s meals into growing garbage, ensuring chefs have what they need to turn ordinary food into extraordinary meals  - one has to wonder: who are these restaurant industry underdogs who choose to clean up our mess? And what makes them tick? Dish Pigs takes viewers past the cultured atmosphere of fine dining into the dish pit, where the wild antics of dishwashers, sous-chefs and chefs are unleashed as life moves to a different rhythm: rinse, wash, repeat.

Documentary | 23 min

Dish Pigs

Toronto's only multi-day food film festival that showcased mouth-watering, thought-provoking, conversation-starting independent films about food from around the world.

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Filters and sorts

All "Toronto Food Film Fest" content

Absolutely Canadian

Lunchbox Dilemma

Patty vs. Patty

Nose to Tail

Koto: The Last Service

Canadian Reflections

Counting on a New Crop

Canadian Reflections

CBC Docs POV

Forage

Stage: The Culinary Internship

Grand Cru

CBC Docs POV

Dish Pigs