1.Willy O’rea Documentary
Biographical piece on Willie O'Ree, the NHL's first Black Player. Amazing life story and hockey career as Willie lost sight in one eye due to a receiving a puck to the eye, Willie continued to play blind in one eye and never told anyone.
2. The Colour of Beauty
Renee Thompson is trying to make it as a top fashion model in New York. She's got the looks, the walk and the drive. But she’s a black model in a world where white women represent the standard of beauty. Agencies rarely hire black models. And when they do, they want them to look “like white girls dipped in chocolate.” The Colour of Beauty is a shocking short documentary that examines racism in the fashion industry. Is a black model less attractive to designers, casting directors and consumers? What is the colour of beauty?
3. Speaker for the Dead
This documentary reveals some of the hidden history of Blacks in Canada. In the 1930s in rural Ontario, a farmer buried the tombstones of a Black cemetery to make way for a potato patch. In the 1980s, descendants of the original settlers, Black and White, came together to restore the cemetery, but there were hidden truths no one wanted to discuss. Deep racial wounds were opened. Scenes of the cemetery excavation, interviews with residents and re-enactments—including one of a baseball game where a broken headstone is used for home plate—add to the film's emotional intensity.
4. Mighty Jerome
From acclaimed filmmaker Charles Officer comes the story of the rise, fall and redemption of Harry Jerome, Canada's most record-setting track and field star. Gorgeous monochrome imagery, impassioned interviews and astonishing archival footage are used to tell the triumphant and compelling story of what Harry Jerome's own coach called "the greatest comeback in track and field history."
5. Viola Desmond
Civil Rights activist Viola Desmond is the first woman, outside of a monarch, to be on a Canadian bank note. Viola Desmond has been called the "Rosa Parks of Canada." Her story has been turned into a Heritage Minute by Historica Canada.