New Releases at the Library

An outstanding American independent documentary from the makers of the award-winning Let's get real!, That's a family! is a highly entertaining documentary that breaks new ground in helping children see and understand many of the different shapes that families take today. With blunt and sometimes hilarious candour, the children who star in That's a family! take us on a tour through their lives and speak movingly about their unique family experiences, explaining concepts like birth mum, mixed race, guardian, gay and lesbian, and stepdad. "An extraordinary film that teaches a poignant lesson about love and family" - Robin Williams.

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Three kids growing up in a low-income neighbourhood find friendship and community in an unlikely place.

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Vancouver : no fixed address takes a look at the Vancouver housing crisis. From Toronto to Sydney and from San Francisco to London the cost of housing in cities around the world is skyrocketing. This documentary takes an uncompromising look at the drama unfolding in one such city, where multi-ethnic citizens fight to preserve homes as living spaces instead of global financial commodities. It is also a story about the very idea of home, what promotes or destroys one's sense of belonging, and struggling to cope with the strange and often threatening economic and social forces at the start of the 21st century.

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Foundations of Eastern civilization takes you on a grand journey to explore the big accomplishments of Eastern civilization, from the material economy of day-to-day life to the political and religious philosophies that would bind these cultures together for thousands of years. Over the course of 48 lectures, Professor Craig G. Benjamin introduces you to the many people, achievements, and ideas that came out of Eastern civilization and played a role in creating the modern world. In this course, you will travel across continents and over the ages to arrive at a full understanding of the Eastern world.

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Christine Sokaymoh Frederick is co-founder and Artistic Director of Alberta Aboriginal Arts which produces the Rubaboo Arts Festival. She is an urban Aboriginal Cree-Métis and has thirty years of performance experience, including representing Canada on several occasions on the international stage as a dancer, musician, media artist, writer, producer, and actor. REDx talks celebrate Resilience, Empowerment, and Discourse; the "x" represents the treaties of the past, the 4 directions, and the unknown.

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More Titles from RedX Talks: art is the medicine

Leroy Little Bear is one of Canada's most renowned Indigenous academics. For Dr. Little Bear, the only way Canada will become a true nation is to embody the indigenous roots of the territory that it claims. REDx talks celebrate Resilience, Empowerment, and Discourse; the "x" represents the treaties of the past, the 4 directions, and the unknown.

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More Titles from RedX Talks: what I know now

When Áila encounters a young Indigenous woman, barefoot and crying in the rain on the side of a busy street, she soon discovers that this young woman, Rosie, has just escaped a violent assault at the hands of her boyfriend. Áila decides to bring Rosie home with her and, over the course of the evening, the two navigate the aftermath of this traumatic event.

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Based on the celebrated novel by Emily M. Danforth, *The Miseducation of Cameron Post* follows the titular character (Chloë Grace Moretz) as she is sent to a gay conversion therapy center after getting caught with another girl in the back seat of a car on prom night. Winner of a Grand Jury Prize at the **Sundance Film Festival**.

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A profile of sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, famed for his work using natural materials such as ice, stone, leaves, and wood. Shot in four countries across four seasons, the documentary offers an insight into Goldsworthy's painstaking creative processes and the elusive nature of his work, which is often destroyed by nature and by the passing of time. Rivers and tides depicts the magical relationship between nature and art.

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Fifty years on from the promise of equality and the Civil Rights Act, this documentary reveals the moments where America had the chance to become more equal and why that didn't happen.  Through compelling interviews with those who were at the forefront of the struggle for a fair system in education, housing and criminal justice, the film reveals the key court cases, Supreme Court rulings and laws that failed to bridge the gap.  It gives us the shocking context to the anger felt by the millions of people who took to the streets during the Black Lives Matter protests. The movement was not just calling for an end to police brutality but also asking for something that had been pledged 50 years ago: racial equality.

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The Psychedelic Drug Trial has exclusive access to a ground-breaking new trial at Imperial College London. The trial sees, for the first time ever under controlled conditions, a psychedelic drug tested head-to-head against a standard antidepressant as a treatment for depression.  The film follows a pioneering team of scientists and psychotherapists, led by Professor David Nutt, Dr Robin Carhart-Harris and Dr Rosalind Watts, as they compare the effects of psilocybin (the active ingredient of magic mushrooms) with an antidepressant (an SSRI called escitalopram) on a small group of participants with clinical depression. This is scientific research at its most cutting edge. With over seven million people being prescribed antidepressants each year in England alone, this drug trial is an important milestone in understanding a completely different treatment for depression. 

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There's a growing health emergency across the country and it's taking lives at ever increasing rates. It's the opioid crisis. Many of us don't see it or experience it firsthand, but nearly 7,000 lives are being lost every year in Canada. The concern is that it's only going to get worse. Now, some communities are looking for unique solutions.

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In 1965, Tiffany's mother was separated from her parents. She never saw them again. 40 years later, Tiffany flies to Taiwan to try and find her grandparents - with just two names scribbled on a napkin. Sing Me a Lullaby unravels the complex tensions between love and sacrifice, captured over 14 years and across two continents. Told through the intertwined journeys of daughters and their mothers, this is a story about recovering familial history, healing inherited pain, and understanding that love comes in many forms.

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With a pandemic that is threatening to take our elders, Sarain Fox sits with her oldest Matriarch, Mary Bell, to gather her stories and preserve her cultural legacy.

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Influenced and influential, April Churchill and Gladys Vandal stand out as highly gifted and talented Haida artists, both of whom have worked to preserve the Haida weaving tradition. The eldest daughter of legendary teacher Delores Churchill, April discusses why safeguarding tradition is important to her. Gladys Vandal also has roots deep in the basketry that grows out of the cedar tree. At her kitchen table, she demonstrates one of the oldest weaving techniques on earth. Shot on British Columbia's rugged northwest coast, Ravens and Eagles: Haida Art delves into the roots of traditional Haida art and traces the genesis of today's generation of Haida carvers, singers, dancers, weavers and performers. Created by Haida filmmaker Marianne Jones and Jeff Bear, Ravens and Eagles approaches Haida art and culture from the Haida perspective.

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A weaver from Skidegate, British Columbia, Vicki Moody uses cedar bark in the creation of a new style of art that brings together bold designs with her political views. Vicki came to cedar as a teenager and has woven stories into her work. Her Transition Robe features the marriage of wool and cedar in new and innovative ways. She has also used her art to help educate people about the importance of cedar to Haida culture. Shot on British Columbia's rugged northwest coast, Ravens and Eagles: Haida Art delves into the roots of traditional Haida art and traces the genesis of today's generation of Haida carvers, singers, dancers, weavers and performers. Created by Haida filmmaker Marianne Jones and Jeff Bear, Ravens and Eagles approaches Haida art and culture from the Haida perspective.

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Many Haida cultural treasures currently housed in museums around the world were looted from old and vacated Haida village sites. In their zeal, early explorers to Haida Gwaii took away grave goods and human remains, a questionable academic practice that continues to perplex aboriginal people. Today the Haida have begun the process of repatriation and the first to return are the ancestors themselves. Although they've encountered resistance, negotiators have brokered arrangements with local and Canadian museums, the first of these with the National Museum in Ottawa. In Yahgu dang ang: To Pay Respect, the Haida prepare to rebury the remains of seven of their ancestors in Skidegate, British Columbia with a traditional burning of food. Two key individuals in Haida repatriation efforts are featured. Created by Haida filmmaker Marianne Jones and Jeff Bear, Ravens and Eagles approaches Haida art and culture from the Haida perspective.

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