Oil Springs

Jun 13, 2025

0h 42m

★ 0.0

Welcome to the town where the North American Oil Industry Was Born

Overview

The story will mostly take place in the town Oil Springs, Ontario, where the oil industry in North America was born. By making a case study of this town, we can better understand how the industry operates today. The documentary will explore themes of colonialism, climate change and Canadian identity.

Genres

Documentary

History

Production Companies

Elytra Collective

Oil Springs Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

No Cast found.

The Indian Act, passed in Canada in 1876, made members of Aboriginal peoples second-class citizens, separated from the white population: nomadic for centuries, they were moved to reservations to control their behavior and resources; and thousands of their youngest members were separated from their families to be Christianized: a cultural genocide that still resonates in Canadian society today.

0.0

Tóxico, Texaco, Tóxico

Nov 25, 2007

The imagination of history in Ecuador never thought that oil, “its redeeming hope”, discovered in the Lago Agrio No. 1 well, was going to mean the beginning of the worst environmental catastrophe on the planet. Thirty years of operation and exploitation of the Texaco company, forever transformed the rivers and estuaries, the forests and the life of the indigenous communities in the northern Amazon of Ecuador.

6.0

California Company Town

Sep 22, 2008

Lee Anne Schmitt explores California's landscape and past to document the history of one-time boom towns built and abandoned by the industries that necessitated their creation. Sold as a limitless land expansive with free opportunity, California was actually, from its onset, fissured by the interwoven needs of private and public interests. Schmitt's film covers various locations through time, as the major industries of the early 20th century (mining, lumber, oil) give way to the military, eventually leading to multinational corporations, and the use of small towns as satellites for growing urban metropolises.

7.2

Crude Oil

Jan 17, 2008

Filmed in the Inner Mongolian portion of the Gobi Desert, this film follows a group of oil field workers as they go about their daily routine.

9.5

Tommy Douglas: Keeper of the Flame

Jan 1, 1986

This feature documentary traces the political career of T.C. (Tommy) Douglas, former premier of Saskatchewan and leader of the New Democratic Party, who was voted the Greatest Canadian in 2004 for his devotion to social causes, his charm and his powers of persuasion. Known as the "Father of Medicare," this one-time champion boxer and fiery preacher entered politics in the 1930s and never looked back.

8.0

Tipping Point: The End of Oil

Sep 16, 2011

In an oil-scarce world, we know there are sacrifices to be made in the pursuit of energy. What no one expected was that a tiny Native community, living down the river from Canada's tar sands, would reach out to the world for help — and be heard.

7.0

Nuuca

Jul 2, 2018

In this evocative meditation, a disturbing link is made between the resource extraction industries’ exploitation of the land and violence inflicted on Indigenous women and girls. Or, as one young woman testifies, “Just as the land is being used, these women are being used.”

No Image

0.0

Fuel-Less, You Can’t Be Cool Without Fuel

Sep 15, 1996

A spoof on the movie “Clueless” – follows high-school queen Crystal through the worst day of her young, pampered life. It seems that everything in her life derived from oil has disappeared: her makeup, Daddy’s credit card, gasoline for her beloved BMW and aspirin for her growing stress headache — all gone. But with a little guidance from Miss Watkins, her “extremely cool science teacher,” Crystal gets a better understanding of where oil comes from, how it is processed and how the products made from oil impact our everyday lives.

0.0

Wiebo's War

Apr 28, 2011

Wiebo Ludwig is the leader of a Christian group who brought his family to live in Alberta, Canada, 25 years ago in order live a life according to scripture. They built a small, self-sufficient community in a place that they did not realize was one of the largest undeveloped natural gas fields in North America. Unlike others who lived in the area, Wiebo and his family refused to sell their land and move, and now Wiebo is the prime suspect in a series of pipeline bombings and other acts of sabotage against the local oil industry.

10.0

Ceremony

Mar 14, 2026

Through ramshackled Nuxalk Radio in Bella Coola, the disappearance of the ooligan reveals a buried history deeper than the river itself.

0.0

Testimonio de un obrero petrolero

Jan 1, 1978

Through the testimony of Manuel Taborda, a pioneer of labor organizing in Venezuela’s oil fields, this documentary revisits the experiences of oil workers between 1920 and 1936. Their memories reveal a world marked by corporal punishment, exploitation, racial segregation, and disease, alongside the emergence of collective resistance against the American and British oil companies that controlled the industry and the government that enabled them.

7.4

Killers of the Flower Moon

Oct 18, 2023

When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.

0.0

Secrets & Deals

Sep 6, 2022

In 1971, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE ceased to be part of Britain’s empire in the Middle East and became fully independent states. BBC News Persia and BBC Arabic collaborate in this gripping film, to uncover the secrets and shady deals that underpinned the decolonization process. From eye-witness accounts of a British-organised coup to Iran being left in control of disputed islands, it's a fascinating insight to a murky history.

7.2

Collapse

Sep 12, 2009

From the acclaimed director of American Movie, the documentary follows former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter Michael Ruppert. He recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out his apocalyptic vision of the future, spanning the crises in economics, energy, environment and more.

6.4

Earth 2100

Jun 2, 2009

Experts say over the next hundred years the "perfect storm" of population growth, resource depletion and climate change could converge with catastrophic results. The scenarios in Earth 2100 are not a prediction of what will happen but rather a warning about what might happen.

7.3

The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream

Jan 12, 2004

Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream. But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge...

0.0

Orphaned

Oct 8, 2021

Through the eyes of ex-engineer, now filmmaker Gillian McKercher, Orphaned explores the huge task of cleaning up thousands of idle oil and gas wells in the prairies before it's too late.

6.6

Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem

Jun 16, 2025

Rob Ford scandalized Canadian politics as the brash yet beloved mayor of Toronto — until an infamous video of him smoking crack sparked his downfall.

4.8

SWITCH

Sep 4, 2012

What will it really take, to transition from oil and coal, to the energies of tomorrow? SWITCH goes where no film has gone before, deep into the world's most restricted energy sites, to depoliticize competing power sources, make the technical accessible, and discover the truth of our energy future. Test audiences have raved, calling it, 'The most important energy film since An Inconvenient Truth.'

7.0

A Cidade do Salvador (Petróleo Jorrou na Bahia)

Jan 1, 1981

Documentary about power and class relations in the sociocultural context of Bahia, considering the history of oil extraction in the state.