New Releases at the Library

As dawn breaks and most of the city still sleeps, the long-time merchants of Vancouver's Chinatown are hard at work. They haul out their produce stands and set up their makeshift vendor carts in preparation for what they hope will be a busy day. But, like many ethnic enclaves in urban centres across North America, their clientele is dwindling. This once vibrant and thriving neighbourhood is in flux as new condo developments and non-Chinese businesses move in and gradually overtake the declining hub of the Chinese community. Everything Will Be, from Sundance award-winning director Julia Kwan, captures this fascinating transformation through the intimate perspectives of the neighbourhood's residents, diverse merchants and new entrepreneurs, who offer their poignant reflections on change, memory and legacy. Night and day, a neon sign-an art installation-that reads "EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT" looms over Chinatown. Everything is going to be alright. The big question is-for whom?

Streaming Video

After generations of silence, the rhythm of the Inuit drum has returned to Labrador. Evan's Drum is a joyful, intimate window into the lives of an Inuit family who work alongside their community to keep this drumbeat alive. At the heart of this story is seven-year-old Evan and his mother, Amy. In many ways, Evan is your typical adventurous and playful child; however, when it comes to the drum, his focus and passion for the instrument transcends his age. Among the first Labrador Inuit children in living memory to be raised with the traditional drum, Evan is part of a new generation of drum dancers. The remarkable bond between mother and son, and their shared connection to the drum, link them to past and future generations of Labrador Inuit drummers. Their love of drum dancing reflects the strong sense of pride that Labrador Inuit have in their traditional drum, which has become a symbol of cultural renewal and strength.

Streaming Video

Mieko Ouchi is half Celtic, half Japanese... and all Canadian. In 1993, Mieko, an actor, began researching a documentary about her grandfather, Edward Ouchi, a Japanese immigrant to Canada. Then she was cast to star in The War Between Us, a film on the World War II internment of 22,000 Japanese-Canadians--re-enacting a key episode in her own community's history. Part Japanese-Canadian history, part autobiography and family chronicle, Shepherd's Pie and Sushi looks at complex questions of personal and cultural identity with a light touch. Using archival material, dramatic re-enactment, powerful scenes from The War Between Us and moving interviews with members of the Ouchi family, the film relates the early history of Japanese-Canadians and looks at Mieko's and her family's struggles with their own identities.

Streaming Video

Yorkville Avenue, Toronto, received newspaper prominence after it became what the papers called a "hippie haven." This film records what happened after the young people staged demonstrations to have the street closed to traffic, and civic authorities used corresponding persuasions to keep it open as a necessary traffic artery. The main confrontation takes place at a council meeting in City Hall, to which spokesmen for the young people have come to present their case. Here the film provides opportunity to judge both their attitudes and those of the city administration.

Streaming Video

Paraskeva Clark, artist, socialist, feminist, is her own woman at her own cost. This film is a cameo of an irascible and oftentimes touching artist whose work has won her a place in exhibitions and private collections. Born in Russia in 1898, she eventually married a Canadian and moved to Toronto. Because her canvases reflect a strong social conscience, she had to struggle hard to earn a place in the nation's ultra-conservative galleries.

Streaming Video

The origins and evolution of the Innu Nikamu Music and Aboriginal Arts Festival are intimately linked to the cultural and territorial roots of the Innu people and to the life of the Mani-Utenam Reserve community. In the 20th century, Notre-Dame boarding school in Mani-Utenam took Innu children away from their family, territory and culture, and was part of a government imposed residential school program that left an indelible scar on the community. At the school's closing the buildings were demolished and buried in a field which was to become, a decade later in 1985, the site of Innu Nikamu. Through the music which has accompanied the Innu people throughout their history, director Kevin Bacon traces the fabulous story of the founders, musicians, artisans and collaborators who ignited the hope of a community in distress, and dared to believe that the re-appropriation of their culture and their language was not an impossible challenge.

Streaming Video

Muslim women are disconcerting, intriguing, polarizing-and straitjacketed by conflations of ideas in front-page stories. While the media tend to portray them as submissive and silenced, filmmaker Saïda Ouchaou-Ozarowski has chosen to distance herself from that caricature, with which she does not identify. She sat down with six Muslim Canadian women eager to talk about what shapes their identities. The resulting documentary, In Full Voice, offers an intimate perspective on the journey of these women, who have a common desire to share their visions of Islam.

Streaming Video

Ghyslain Raza was 15 years old in 2003, when his two minutes of fame would make him "patient zero" of web virality. He'd filmed himself letting it all hang out in a fixed-shot video. An amateur video. Overnight, it was made public by other students and downloaded millions of times - long before social media came onto the scene. Suddenly, "sharing" became synonymous with meanness, intimidation, and a mob mentality. Unwittingly, Raza became the "Star Wars Kid." Now, South Park and Family Guy were making references to the teen from Trois-Rivières behind the most famous meme in history. Over the next two decades, Ghyslain built - or, rather, rebuilt - his life away from the camera. Today, he is a man with a keen emotional intelligence, and a doctoral student in law. The world has changed since 2003, largely thanks to the rise of social media, the commercialization of personal data, and the relentless memory of the web, which could come back to haunt us at any time. It's a potent fear, and one that leads to questions on the right to control one's own image, and, above all, the right to be forgotten.

Streaming Video

How can refugee children integrate into Quebec's school system, given the unspeakable violence they've experienced? Following a psychologist specializing in conflict-related trauma, Unspoken Tears pays tribute to the admirable resilience and survival strategies of these "small adults," whose spirit the bombs and camps have not completely crushed, at a time when it is vital to raise awareness in Western societies of migration-related issues and children's rights.

Streaming Video

Overview 16+ Hours of Video Instruction Description This master class includes the following courses: Introduction to Python: Learn How to Program Today with Python Next Level Python Introduction to Python: Learn How to Program Today with Python This 7+ hour LiveLesson video helps absolute beginners get started in Python, which is one of the most popular and in-demand languages in use today. Python was created with beginners in mind, but don't let its simple nature fool you. It is used by professional developers in a wide range of applications, such as web programming, data analysis, machine learning, and DevOps. While most introductory courses focus on the basics of the language, this course goes one step further to explain how Python is used in practice in the fields of data analysis and web development. Students learn fundamental programming concepts, such as conditionals, loops, and functions. They are given hands-on, modular problems to solve so they can progress as they go. Finally, students tie it all together and experiment with some real programming in the form of text-based games. The overall goal of this course is to help absolute beginners learn from scratch, navigate the world of software development, and then kick-start their programming journey with introductions to two of the more common uses of Python: data analysis and web development.

Streaming Video

A documentary film about microaggressions and gender featuring six unique voices from the Pacific Northwest at various intersections of age, race, gender, ethnicity, and social class. My whole self shows how friendship, dialogue, humor, and intelligence allow women to succeed despite the implicit bias against them even in a "socially progressive" place like Portland, Oregon.

Streaming Video

The French editor of Elle magazine, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in 1995 at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body, except his left eye. Using that eye to blink out his memoir, Bauby eloquently described the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands he'd only visited in his mind.

Streaming Video

Although the Nanjing Massacre, a series of war crimes committed by Japanese troops in China's capital during the second Sino-Japanese War, occurred seventy years ago, the nature and extent of these atrocities remains the subject of continuing historical debate and the source of political tensions between China and Japan. During the military occupation, Japanese troops engaged in arson, rape, looting, and executions of prisoners of war and civilians, including women and children. Debate continues to rage over the extent of the atrocities and the number of deaths, with some Japanese denying any atrocities took place. However, credible estimates of non-combatant deaths range from 100,000 to 300,000. Nanjing : memory and oblivion uses archival footage and photos along with interviews with Chinese survivors and eyewitnesses, former Japanese soldiers, both Chinese and Japanese government officials, historians, and lawyers, to document the events of 'The Rape of Nanking' and to show how the interpretation of this history has become politicized.

Streaming Video

This exclusive portrait is the first to portray North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il, with interviews of North and South Korean politicians, as well as close relatives and former employees who have fled the regime. The government is secretive and little is known about Jong-il. He managed to retain power after his father Kim Il-Sung's death in 1994. By 1997, North Korea had become one of the most isolated countries in the world, with an economy in shambles and frequent famines causing the death of millions of his compatriots. Jong-il's regime has made North Korea a nuclear rogue state threatening the security of the world. Having grown up among the military and political operatives of his father's government, Jong-il was appointed his father's propaganda chief. By writing and directing films, ballets, and operas glorifying his father and himself, he created a remarkable personality cult around his father. This he extended to encompass himself, thereby legitimizing the father-son political succession.

Streaming Video

First Nations survivors of the Kuper Island Indian Residential School, British Columbia, tell of the conditions and abuse they experienced as children forced to attend the institution, describe the long-term effect on their lives, and share the joys and sorrows of their quest for spiritual healing.

Streaming Video

While art forms such as carved masks depicting mythic beings by Northwest coast indigenous people have received worldwide recognition, little is known about Chilkat or Northern Geometric weaving also practiced traditionally by these people. Although the art form is thousands of years old, today there are only 15 weavers alive who practice it. Award-winning 'Namgis filmmaker Barb Cranmer and producer Cari Green travelled to Alert Bay, British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska to document the work of these six weavers. Gwishalaayt, which in the Tsimshian language means "the spirit wraps around you," follows the work of these weavers and presents their woven regalia in cultural context at Potlatches and other ceremonies. The weavers share their knowledge and personal experience of practicing an art form that has become a way of life for them, while addressing some of the misconceptions about the weaving that were presented by those who have written about it in the past.

Streaming Video

The Gwa'sala and the 'Nakwaxda'xw First Nations people lived as two distinct groups along Canada's northwest coast. In 1964, for ease of administration, the Canadian Government forcibly relocated them from their traditional territories along Queen Charlotte Strait--Smith Inlet, Seymour Inlet and Blunden Harbour--to the Tsulquate reserve near Port Hardy on Vancouver Island, far from their traditional territory. They took what they could carry and, when they returned for their possessions, the Indian Agent had already burned their houses to the ground. The effects were devastating and prompted the 1970 publication of Alan Fry's book How a people die. Yet return journeys to visit their traditional homelands have managed to reverse a tragic spiral, helping them to reconnect to their land and culture. Candid and moving interviews, striking archival footage--including their early contact with Franz Boas and Edward Sheriff Curtis--and a visit to their stunning homelands portray a journey of healing.

Streaming Video

At the time this film was made, fewer than 15 Nuxalk language speakers and storytellers remained in Bella Coola, British Columbia. One of these elders is the director Banchi Hanuse's 80-year-old grandmother. In a technologically obsessed century, it would seem easier to record Nuxalk stories for future generations, but Hanuse resists. Instead, she asks whether an electronic recording can capture the true meaning and value of these oral traditions. More importantly, can it be considered cultural knowledge? Cry rock examines how Nuxalk stories are more than mere words. With the passing of an elder, an invaluable link to a treasure of knowledge and experience reflecting the Nuxalk world view is lost. As Hanuse struggles with the decision, a spine tingling story about the Cry rock in the bend of the Atnarko River, nestled in the Bella Coola Valley, is retold by Clyde Tallio, a young Nuxalk man. Immersive and revealing, the documentary blends interviews set against the wild beauty of the Bella Coola Valley with vivid watercolor animations. Cry rock illuminates the intersection of Nuxalk history, place and spirit that are at the heart of an oral storytelling tradition.

Streaming Video

Part 3, Keeping our heads above water, tells the story of the Cheslatta Carrier Nation, whose people were evicted from their homeland in 1952 by Alcan's hydroelectric project. Today, they are still struggling to keep their heads above water, culturally and economically. This is 21st century Canada, and the story of two communities--colonizers and the colonized. It's a story with a question mark. After almost a century of apartheid in this region, the film asks: Is there a way forward?

Streaming Video

Part 2, High noon in Burns Lake, tells the story of the Ts'il Kaz Koh First Nation, or Burns Lake Band. Its people have been in conflict with the Village of Burns Lake over appropriated lands for almost a hundred years, a conflict that culminated in the municipality shutting off water and sewerage services to their Reserve in the year 2000. This led to a ruling in favour of the Band by the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

Streaming Video

Part 1, The contagion of colonisation, looks at the historical circumstances, including the settlement of the west, Canada's Indian Act and the Residential School system. It provides the background on how these First Nations people find themselves in the situations they face today.

Streaming Video

Finding our way, made in partnership with two First Nations bands in north central British Columbia--Ts'il Kaz Koh First Nation (Burns Lake Band) and Cheslatta Carrier Nation--describe conflict over land and sovereignty and ask if there is a way forward. This is a story of a people dispossessed, deep historic wounds, and still unresolved conflict between Indigenous people, governments in Canada, and industry. It's a story of the struggles of two First Nations in the Carrier territory of north central British Columbia, Canada, for land and sovereignty, for healing and revitalization.

Streaming Video

The story of the Grant siblings who journey from Vancouver to China in an attempt to rediscover their father's roots and better understand his fractured relationship with their Musqueam mother. Raised primarily in the traditions of the Musqueam people, the Grant family and their story reveals the shared struggles of migrants and Aboriginal peoples today and in the past. This film helps to record and revitalize the interconnected histories of Chinese Canadian and First Nations relations along the Fraser River in British Columbia. Dating as far back as the 19th century, relations between Chinese and First Nations in Canada were often respectful and mutually beneficial; both peoples supported one another in the face of marginalization and racism. The film features siblings Helen Callbreath, Gordon Grant, Larry Grant, and Howard E. Grant, who are elders from the Musqueam Nation with Chinese ancestry. The siblings reflect on their experiences growing up on the Chinese farms at Musqueam and in Vancouver's Chinatown, and the impact of discriminatory government legislation on their lives.

Streaming Video

This film demonstrates the time-honored solutions to the problems associated with the Boran's dependence on cattle for living. Direct government intervention and the indirect impact of modernization are forcing the old patterns to change. The film depicts herding practices, movement patterns, watering strategies, and the lifestyle of the herdsmen. The film has special currency for issues in rural development and agricultural, environmental, and human adaption. Courses that emphasize the problems of developing nations, cross-cultural techniques of adaptation, the role of the environment in questions of human survival, and the role of government in rural development will find the film useful. Major concepts include pastoralism, nomadic-sedentary interaction, environmental adaptation, role segregation of men and women in economic and ritual affairs, ritual and the role of the supernatural.

Streaming Video

Join Josiah Dykstra for an introduction to the application of scientific methodology to the process of creating cybersecurity tools and systems. Creating, using, and evaluating cybersecurity tools and systems are complex tasks. Many cybersecurity professionals are attracted to the challenges of building these tools and systems, and are motivated to use their expertise to bring sanity and solutions to real-world problems. The addition of scientific methodology aids in dealing with uncertainty, unknowns, choices, and crises. It can improve existing products and lead to groundbreaking innovation and applications. In this course, you’ll focus on practical, real-world applications of science to the work you do. You’ll learn about scientific principles and flexible methodologies for effective security as you design, execute, and evaluate your own experiments. You’ll discover why the application of science is worth the added effort and you’ll glean insights from specific examples of experimentation in cybersecurity.

Streaming Video

What makes a robot a robot? What widely different types of robots exist, and what is robot software engineering?

Streaming Video

This course is loaded with JavaScript examples and is perfect for beginners to learn more about JavaScript online. We learn to write JavaScript code using vanilla JavaScript. No libraries, no tricks. This JavaScript tutorial will walk you through creating your own JavaScript code and provide many JavaScript code snippets for use in JavaScript programming. The course covers core concepts such as variables, constants, data types, conditional statements, literals, type conversions, operators, functions objects, arrays, loops and iterations, JavaScript maps, and much more. Modern JavaScript-focused means that we will cover current syntax as well as foundational code. The content of this course is designed from real-world coding needs, based on questions, and commonly used code for real-world applications. No wasted time, just straight code learning.

Streaming Video

In 1942, Executive Order 9066 paved the way for the profound violation of constitutional rights that resulted in the forced incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans. Featuring George Takei and many others who were incarcerated, as well as newly rediscovered photographs of Dorothea Lange, And then they came for us brings history into the present, retelling this difficult story and following Japanese Americans as they speak out against the Muslim registry and travel ban.

Streaming Video

Uncovering the real costs of the platform economy through the lives of people around the world working for companies like Uber, Amazon and Deliveroo. From delivering food and driving ride shares to tagging images for AI, millions of people around the world are finding work task by task online. The gig economy is worth over 5 trillion USD globally, and growing. And yet the stories of the workers behind this tech revolution have gone largely neglected. Who are the people in this shadow workforce? The gig is up brings their stories into the light. Lured by the promise of flexible work hours, independence, and control over time and money, workers from around the world have found a very different reality. Work conditions are often dangerous, pay often changes without notice, and workers can effectively be fired through deactivation or a bad rating. Through an engaging global cast of characters, The gig is up reveals how the magic of technology we are being sold might not be magic at all.

Streaming Video

Macedonian teenagers broke the code. The rest of the world faced the consequences. In 2016, an army of teenagers in Macedonia discovered a wildly lucrative game of posting false political clickbait news articles on Facebook for profit. By creating websites leading up to the presidential election that published sensationalized and misleading news stories about American politics, they generated a massive income and influenced the election. Selling lies offers a rare glimpse inside the secret network behind these websites, including one notorious ringleader whose social media reach had vast implications on American readers, and explores how disinformation campaigns continued to strongly impact the U.S. leading into the 2020 presidential election.

Streaming Video

What if the world told you that you don't exist? For many gender non-conforming individuals, this is the reality. We exist : beyond the binary is one of the first films to document this growing community living life "beyond the binary" construct of gender, offering a first-hand account of what it is like to exist as other than strictly male or female. Designed with education in mind, We exist features non-binary individuals, activists, and doctors who all weigh in on subjects ranging from gender binary/social constructs, pronouns, access, and safety. It also tells the riveting and deeply personal story of Lauren Lubin: a person in their mid-twenties who identifies as gender neutral. Lauren shares the emotional, physical, and mental changes and obstacles they face in order to be their authentic self. Featuring non-binary activists Tyler Ford, and Kristen Russo, as well as Dr. Anthony Vivasis, the Clinical Director of Medical Services at Callen Lorde Community Health Center and Dr. Charles Garramone, Board Certified Plastic & Reconstructive Surgeon at The Garramone Center.

Streaming Video

A suicide attempt survivor is on a mission to find fellow survivors and document their stories of unguarded courage, insight, pain, and humor. Along the way, she discovers a national community rising to transform personal struggles into action. The S word chronicles her journey and these survivors in a powerful feature documentary that puts a human face to a topic that has long been stigmatized and buried with the lives it has claimed. Suicide affects people of all ages, races, faiths, ethnicities, gender presentations, sexual orientations, professions, and so much more. The S word skillfully weaves stories of survivors from a cross-section of America including LGBT, African American, and Asian American communities, who candidly share their profoundly emotional stories of trauma, mental health challenges, survival, and advocacy. The film's narrative flows organically from one story to the next, starting with personal moments and building emotional momentum before widening out to show how their journeys are driving the national movement to take the "S" word from unthinkable to preventable.

Streaming Video