First Stripes

Feb 20, 2018

1h 46m

★ 6.0

Overview

As they undergo 12 weeks of intensive training, a group of young civilians is gradually moulded into soldiers. The Basic Training, a prerequisite for joining the Canadian Armed Forces, becomes the gateway to exploring the inner workings of a world governed by its own rules and values.

Genres

Documentary

First Stripes Trailers

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Cast

No Cast found.

This film explores what life was like for LGBTQ+ Royal Navy personnel serving under the ban on homosexuality in the military and how things have changed since the ban was lifted in 2000. We speak to Duncan who led the fight to overturn the ban; Ann who served during and after the ban was lifted; and Danny and Cole who both served after the ban was lifted. This collaboration was between filmmaker David Graham, the National Museum of the Royal Navy and the Royal Navy LGBTQ+ Network. The National Museum of the Royal Navy commissioned the film.

7.0

The Dionne Quintuplets

Nov 19, 1978

In 1934, Elzire Dionne delivered five identical girls. The Dionne Quintuplets follows Cecile, Emilie, Marie, Yvonne and Annette through twenty-one years of strange upbringing. When the girls were just infants, the premier of Ontario issued a court order removing them from parental care. Cut off from the world and their family, over-publicized, viewed twice daily in a special viewing compound, they grew up as prize exhibits. Director Donald Brittain uses old newsreel footage, home-movie sequences and interviews to depict a historic event that became a tragic exploitation of a family.

0.0

Wide Boyz II – Slender Gentlemen

Dec 31, 2014

After their success climbing the world’s hardest offwidth, the Wide Boyz, Pete Whittaker and Tom Randall, embark on their next crack climbing mission. This time their sights are set on the thinner end of the crack climbing spectrum. Their goal is the mighty Cobra Crack in Squamish BC, considered to be the hardest finger crack in the world. First climbed by Canadian ‘rock star’ Sonnie Trotter after battling it out with Didier Berthod, the route hit the media spotlight in the film First Ascent. With no local hard cracks to train on, the Wide Boyz refit their underground training dungeon and commit to a year of torturous finger training. With only a short trip to Canada planned, the Boyz face their biggest challenge yet against the sharp granite bite of the mighty Cobra Crack!

7.5

Bowling for Columbine

Oct 9, 2002

This is not a film about gun control. It is a film about the fearful heart and soul of the United States, and the 280 million Americans lucky enough to have the right to a constitutionally protected Uzi. From a look at the Columbine High School security camera tapes to the home of Oscar-winning NRA President Charlton Heston, from a young man who makes homemade napalm with The Anarchist's Cookbook to the murder of a six-year-old girl by another six-year-old. Bowling for Columbine is a journey through the US, through our past, hoping to discover why our pursuit of happiness is so riddled with violence.

5.6

Served Like a Girl

Nov 8, 2017

Five women veterans who have endured unimaginable trauma in service create a shared sisterhood to help the rising number of stranded homeless women veterans by entering a competition that unexpectedly catalyzes moving events in their own lives.

5.5

The Good Canadian

Sep 30, 2025

The world knows the image of the good Canadian. But what if there was a dark secret behind a national identity? THE GOOD CANADIAN exposes the truth behind the idea of a True North strong and free. In this unflinching and eye-opening documentary, directors Leena Minifie and David Paperny move us through the corridors of systemic inequity, from the Indian Act to residential schools, to modern-day family separation. Fusing shocking footage with detailed interviews with experts, advocates, whistleblowers and politicians, THE GOOD CANADIAN challenges national myth-making, while offering Canadians the chance to forge a new identity from the truth.

0.0

A Return to Memory

Oct 17, 2024

When Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it.

7.3

There's Something in the Water

Sep 6, 2019

Elliot Page brings attention to the injustices and injuries caused by environmental racism in his home province, in this urgent documentary on Indigenous and African Nova Scotian women fighting to protect their communities, their land, and their futures.

8.0

Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger

Sep 10, 2019

The story of a young boy forced to spend all five years of his short life in hospital while the federal and provincial governments argued over which was responsible for his care, as well as the long struggle of Indigenous activists to force the Canadian government to enforce “Jordan’s Principle” — the promise that no First Nations children would experience inequitable access to government-funded services again.

0.0

Gentleman Bandit

May 1, 2024

Documentary on the Canadian career of train robber Billy Miner, who became a folk hero in British Columbia. Locations near Kamloops and Mission are explored in present day.

9.0

Home Front

Jan 1, 1940

This short documentary is part of the Canada Carries On series of morale-boosting wartime propaganda films. In Home Front, the various WWII-era social contributions of women are highlighted. From medicine to industrial labour to hospitality, education and domesticity, the service these women provided to their country is lauded.

7.1

Nanook of the North

Jun 11, 1922

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

7.0

Soldier

Feb 13, 2017

A young man decides to join the army. He becomes the drummer in the military band, and his everyday life is now a combination of military training and music. What does the Argentine Army do these days, more than thirty years after the dictatorship? What does it mean to be a soldier in a country without wars?

0.0

Writing the Land

Dec 31, 2007

In this short documentary, a Musqueam elder rediscovers his Native language and traditions in the city of Vancouver, in the vicinity of which the Musqueam people have lived for thousands of years. Writing the Land captures the ever-changing nature of a modern city - the glass and steel towers cut against the sky, grass, trees and a sudden flash of birds in flight and the enduring power of language to shape perception and create memory.

0.0

In a Film by Allan King

Oct 27, 2024

In 1968, Billy and Antoinette Edwards participated in a landmark documentary that would intimately observe their turbulent relationship. Over 50 years later, their son Bogart sat down to view and discuss the resulting film, A Married Couple.

0.0

Kid Rock

Nov 15, 2023

Full of nostalgia and charm, Kid Rock is an exposé of a young black man, Tadros Eyob’s journey into rock climbing in British Columbia.

4.0

Qipisa

Feb 23, 2017

The director goes back to her roots in Pangnirtung, amongst her family and community. It leads her to another journey: to Qipisa, the outpost camp from where they were uprooted.

0.0

Soldier Ahmet

Apr 15, 2021

Ahmet has not cried anymore since he was 13 years old. Out of the need to deal with his emotions, the 29 year old professional soldier and boxer takes acting lessons. The desire to combine his everyday life with the increasingly important passion for acting, threatens to fail in the prejudices of the people around him - in the familiar environment with its tight structures as well as in the seemingly liberal world that has opening up to him.

0.0

L’altro

Oct 13, 2022

No overview available.

1.0

Shameless Propaganda

Jul 1, 2013

This feature documentary examines its own genre, which has often been called Canada's national art form. Released in the year of the NFB's 75th birthday, Shameless Propaganda is filmmaker Robert Lower's take on the boldest and most compelling propaganda effort in our history (1939-1945), in which founding NFB Commissioner John Grierson saw the documentary as a "hammer to shape society". All 500 of the films produced by the NFB until 1945 are distilled here for the essence of their message to Canadians. Using only these films and still photos from that era, Lower recreates the picture of Canada they gave us and looks in it for the Canada we know today. What he finds is by turns enlightening, entertaining, and unexpectedly disturbing.

First Stripes

Overview

Genres

First Stripes Trailers

Cast

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