logologo
MovieVerse© 2024
Privacy PolicyTerms of ServiceContact Us
Made with ❤️ by Thathsara
movie poster
Polar Life
Sign in to create your own watchlist

Polar Life

Apr 22, 1967
0h 18m
★ 0.0

Cinema Expo 67

Overview

Polar Life’s novelty was its theatre, with the audience seated on a central rotating turntable in the middle of eleven fixed screens. Viewers have described the intricate juxtaposition of screen images and narration and the complex relationship created between moving spectators and multiple screens. Documentation images and scripts of the bilingual narration by Lise Payette and Patrick Watson show elaborate temporal and spatial representations of the Arctic and Antarctic regions: the Inuit in daily activities in the Canadian North; other northern peoples of Alaska, Lapland, and Siberia; and settlers from the South, scientists, explorers, and other inhabitants of the landscape, including reindeer, bears, and birds. Archival film footage of early northern explorers, combined with newly shot documentary footage, was edited across the various screens to create spatial relationships that are sometimes coherent, sometimes fragmented.

Genres

Documentary

Cast

Lise Payette

narrator

Lise Payette

Patrick Watson

narrator

Patrick Watson

Polar Life Trailers

No Trailers found.

You may also like

The Good Canadian
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.

Home Front
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.

Wide Boyz II – Slender Gentlemen
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!

Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger
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.

There's Something in the Water
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.

Gentleman Bandit
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.

The Dionne Quintuplets
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.

Nanook of the North
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.

Bowling for Columbine
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.

Seven for Jack
0.0

Seven for Jack

Aug 18, 2022

Documentary on career criminal Jack Black during an episode of burglary in Victoria BC. Locations around Victoria and Vancouver are explored in present day, with narration from Black's autobiography.

b.longing
0.0

b.longing

Nov 10, 2024

A dialogue and home video about belonging, from young people living in modern colonial society.

The Corporation
7.6

The Corporation

Sep 10, 2003

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

A Greater Chance
0.0

A Greater Chance

Sep 28, 2024

Upon learning of his father's terminal illness diagnosis, a young, autistic, hearing-impaired artist travels back to Taiwan with a filmmaker to make a film in his honour.

EXPO 67 Mission Impossible
7.0

EXPO 67 Mission Impossible

Apr 25, 2017

This documentary let us to relive the challenge of the men behind the 1967 Universal Exposition in Montréal, Canada. By searching trough 80,000 archival documents at the national Archives, they managed to bring light on one of the biggest logistical and political challenges that were faced by organizers during the "Révolution Tranquille" in the Québec sixties. Includes the accounts of the Chief of Advertising Yves Jasmin, and businessman Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien.

Romeos & Juliets
0.0

Romeos & Juliets

Jun 7, 2012

From grueling rehearsals to the world premiere, Romeos & Juliets offers an unprecedented behind-the-curtain look at the National Ballet of Canada as ten dancers vie to perform the lead roles on the coveted opening night of "Romeo and Juliet," as envisioned by acclaimed choreographer Alexei Ratmansky in celebration of the company's 60th anniversary.

No Image
0.0

The Time of the Tar Sands

Aug 1, 1975

A promotional video produced by the Alberta government in 1975, "The time of the tar sands", featuring Gordon Pinsent. credit: Archives of Alberta.

In the Name of All Canadians
0.0

In the Name of All Canadians

Jun 30, 2017

Hot Docs will commemorate Canada's 150th anniversary of Confederation with the commissioning of In the Name of All Canadians, a compilation of six short documentaries inspired by Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. From Indigenous rights to multiculturalism to the controversial ‘notwithstanding clause,’ participating filmmakers have each selected a specific aspect of the Charter to explore, looking at how it resonates in the stories of their fellow Canadians.

NiiSoTeWak: Two Bodies, One Heart
0.0

NiiSoTeWak: Two Bodies, One Heart

May 25, 2017

NiiSoTeWak means “walking the path together.” Tapwewin and Pawaken are 10-year-old brothers trying to make sense of the world, their family and each other. They’re already grappling with some heady questions about identity. What does it mean to be a twin? What does it mean to be Cree? How do you define yourself when you’re forever linked to someone else? The twins discuss these questions with their two elder brothers — 22-year-old actor Asivak and 20-year-old basketball player Mahiigan — and their parents, Jules and Jake.

No Image
0.0

Karihwanoron: Precious Things

Apr 18, 2017

Yagorihwanirats, a Mohawk child from Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in Quebec, attends a unique and special school: Karihwanoron. It is a Mohawk immersion program that teaches Mohawk language, culture and philosophy. Yagorihwanirats is so excited to go to school that she never wants to miss a day – even if she is sick.

No Image
0.0

Declutter

Jun 6, 2017

One Saturday morning, filmmaker Madison Thomas has a revelation: she’s just like her mother. As she thinks about a friend going through tough times, she feels the sudden urge to clean. Through the scrubbing and wiping and rinsing, Madison's thoughts drift to her mother — and her obsessive need to tidy. Madison’s mother survived a traumatic childhood: her own mother never reconciled what she went through at residential school. Cleaning offers moments of control that she didn’t have as a child. She’s fought hard, against all odds, to become a strong woman. They say trauma is in the genes, that it’s passed from one generation to the next. But strength is inherited too. Through rituals as simple as spending time together and smudging, Madison and her mother are beginning to mend the cycle of pain in their family. Declutter is an intimate look into a private moment between mother and daughter and the strength that carries them both.