COAST TO COAST: CANADIAN SHORTS

2019 / Nova Scotia / 10 mins

Paula Danaher is easy to describe, but impossible to define. She’s petite, with pigtails and perpetually painted nails. She works as an arborist in the summer, and a Zamboni driver in the winter. She smokes, she swears and she likes to drink. She’s not religious, but she has lived her entire life in the bible belt of rural New Brunswick. Two years ago, Paula was the short-tempered husband, father, son and neighbour known as Paul. Now, she’s the only transgender person her community has ever met.

2018 / Nova Scotia / 7 mins

An elderly widow embarks on a perilous on-foot journey to stop a man intent on stealing her home, in this stylized retelling of a tale from Nova Scotia’s past.

2019 / British Columbia, Ontario / 18 mins

Who is Biker Bob? When Bethany and Caleb Harding were walking along China Beach on Vancouver Island in 2016, the last thing they expected to find was a message in a bottle. It said, “Biker Bob. If you find me, turn me loose.” Also in the bottle: Bob’s ashes. On the back of the message, another note in newer ink: “It seems like Bob was the type of guy who enjoyed a drink. I took him out for a beer, you should do the same.” Throughout 2016, the bottle washed ashore (at least) three times. Each time, a different person took Bob out for for a celebratory pint, then tossed him back to sea. But who was Biker Bob? And how did he end up travelling the West Coast in a bottle?

2019 / Nova Scotia / 3 mins

What to do with the world’s weirdest looking vegetable? Pickle it! When Nova Scotia farmer Camelia Freiberg was gifted a little brown paper bag filled with gnarly-looking tubers, little did she know that just a few years later, they would become one of her prize crops. So she started pickling them!

2018 / Yukon / 8 mins

There is so much that we don’t understand. An injured artist ponders a seemingly prescient dream.

2019 / Ontario / 8 mins

A long-distance love story unfolds via letters exchanged during the 1956 Everest expedition.