DocFest is excited to announce that our FULL IN-PERSON SCHEDULE IS ONLINE NOW!! NFB films mean inspiring Canadian storytelling by inspiring Canadian filmmakers. Keep reading to find out more about our lineup of NFB feature films for 2024 and for more details on these six amazing Canadian stories.

That’s right our full in-person schedule of when and where films are playing is available now on our website by selecting “2024 Film Program” from our website’s top menu bar or by clicking below. Check out when your favourite films will be playing over the February 23-25th weekend.

For tips on how to access the schedule and how to change the viewer, please watch this short video below.

For generations, the suffering of residential school Survivors has radiated outward, impacting Indigenous families and communities. Children, parents and grandparents have contended with the unspoken trauma, manifested in the lingering effects of colonialism: addiction, emotional abuse and broken relationships. Dr. Jules Arita Koostachin’s deeply personal documentary asks the difficult question: “Who are we without our pain?”

In Stolen Time, a riveting feature documentary, charismatic elder rights lawyer Melissa Miller takes on the for-profit nursing-home industry. It’s Miller’s most challenging case yet in her early career: a mass tort representing hundreds of families fighting some of the world’s most powerful long-term care corporations. Her adversaries stand accused of neglecting their vulnerable charges as they reap huge profits. Booming elderly populations worldwide add urgency to holding these corporations to account.Available for In-Person Screening Only, please see schedule for details.

Nermeen, a young and bold Egyptian Canadian, invites us to join her circle of friends, a group of eight outspoken, daring Arab women who found each other through their shared love of laughter, food and life. The women examine feminism in Arab society, tackling challenging and often taboo sociopolitical issues. Their conversations offer a glimpse into their personalities, revealing their unique perspectives and experiences while providing a complex understanding of what it means to “not be from here.”

The Geographies of DAR is a captivating film that explores the life and literary works of renowned Canadian author David Adams Richards. Through stunning visuals, insightful interviews and excerpts from his writings, the film uncovers the profound connection between Richards’ personal experiences and Eastern Canada’s Miramichi, the region that shaped his storytelling. This poignant film is an elegy to the joys, suffering, mercies and beauty of life, celebrating the indomitable spirit and courage of this extraordinary Canadian writer.

In A Quiet Girl, adopted Montreal filmmaker Adrian Wills commits, on camera and in real time, to unravelling the mystery of his complex beginnings in Newfoundland. Spurred on by a meager clue in his adoption documents, Wills spends two years travelling from the spare beauty of Canada’s most eastern coastline to the red heat of Arizona in search of answers. What Wills finally uncovers pierces into the meaning of family, revealing disquieting parallels between his own life and that of the birth mother he never knew.Available for Online Screening Only, online schedule coming soon.

At a critical moment in the history of the written word, as humanity’s archives migrate to the cloud, one filmmaker goes on a journey around the globe to better understand how she can preserve her own Romanian and Armenian heritage, as well as our collective memory. Blending the intellectual with the poetic, she embarks on a personal quest with universal resonance, navigating the continuum between paper and digital—and reminding us that human knowledge is above all an affair of the soul and the spirit.Available for Online Screening Only, online schedule coming soon.

They won’t be around forever, get your Early Bird pass before prices go up soon.