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- You Are Here - A Come From Away Story is an intimate feature documentary that goes deep into the community of Gander, Newfoundland where 38 airliners carrying over 6,500 passengers were forced to land after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The film pulls back the emotional layers surrounding the five days during which the community housed, fed and cared for the dislocated passengers (or the "come from aways" in Newfoundland parlance). While their stories were the inspiration for the extraordinary Broadway hit musical, Come From Away, the documentary, You Are Here, reveals first-hand accounts of the great kindnesses and energetic resourcefulness the community showed their unexpected guests. Their emotional and sometimes humorous story of compassion and generosity, born of a long history of rescuing and welcoming shipwrecked sailors, resonates with a legacy of healing and reconciliation for the world - especially for the survivors of those murdered on 9/11, and for the first responders who lost their own lives saving others on that fateful day.
- Noelle's Journey is a film about Noelle Elia. A multimedia artist, she writes and films the human condition and shares her discoveries through her work. Her major documentary film project has revolved around Franco Grosso, a working class popcorn vendor. When he unexpectedly passes away, Noelle is prompted to look at her film and its meaning in a new way. This quest for understanding brings her grandfather, Mariano, a successful industrialist, into the spotlight and begins to reveal the underpinnings of an Italian-Canadian community of over 1 million people who travelled to Canada for a new life. Follow Noelle as she goes back to the beginning to discover who we are today.
- Over her 25-year dance career, Veronica Tennant's reputation grew to international stature along with that of the National Ballet of Canada. She earned accolades in every major classical role as well as having several ballets choreographed for her. And although she retired from the ballet 11 years ago, she has never stopped working. She is a wife, mother, broadcaster, children's author, television producer and director - a true Renaissance woman. With film footage documenting her entire career and interviews with National Ballet of Canada icon Celia Franca, ballet superstars Rex Harrington and Evelyn Hart, writer Timothy Findley, and her friends and family, Veronica Tennant: Renaissance Woman explores the many sides of one of Canada's greatest artists, Veronica Tennant. In 1955, the Tennants came to Canada from London, England to make a new life for themselves and their two girls. Dancing from the age of four, nine classes a week, then homework until 11 p.m, every night. At age 18, she became the youngest person ever to enter the National Ballet Company, and made her debut in the principal role in Romeo and Juliet. By 1976, she was living every ballet student's dream - a star at the National Ballet and touring across North America, Europe and Japan with the greatest male dancers of our time, including Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Rudolf Nureyev. Like any other dancer, Tennant has had to find a second life beyond the stage. Since her retirement at the age of 43, she has written and produced a series of successful dance television specials, winning an International Emmy Award in 1999 for Karen Kain: Dancing in the Moment. She is also Toronto's cultural ambassador for the 2008 Olympic Bid, the latest in an impressive line of roles she's played to promote the arts. Now 54, the physical effort of her lifelong passion in dance is taking its toll. This month she will undergo hip replacement surgery, a not-uncommon side effect for professional dancers.
- Episode 2: Born to the Mob On a warm spring day in 1997, a 73 year old man lay facedown, motionless in the middle of the Hamilton neighbourhood where he was born and raised. John Papalia, the last bloody remnant of a once powerful Mafia empire has just been hit. Papalia, who gained international notoriety with his involvement in the 'French Connection' drug ring, was known as "Johnny Pops", a nickname bestowed on him in honour of his bootlegging father, Antonio "Popa" Papalia. Over the span of his career he would pummel the underworld and become known as 'The Enforcer'. Later, out of spite, he was known as the 'The Old Bastard'. Papalia led a colourful life, yet it was restricted and controlled. Johnny's turf was Hamilton and the base of operations, indeed the place of his birth, was Railway Street. Johnny was a sickly child, his lungs ravaged by life-threatening TB. He grew up a brash young man who ran head-long into trouble with the law. Johnny's obsession was with becoming an upper-echelon Mafioso. It's what drove him to seek control of the gambling racket in the 1950's and what pushed him into the most famous drug smuggling operation ever, The French Connection. His rewards were plenty -- shiny new Cadillac's, a criminal franchise under Buffalo's Stephano 'The Undertaker' Magaddino and extraordinary wealth. But, loyalty to La Cosa Nostra came at a price as well. Long prison sentences aggravated his TB. Constant police surveillance created a suspicious and paranoid mob boss. Johnny remained unfailingly loyal to the Mafia, but a younger more sophisticated Mafiosi resented his control over their operations. They saw Johnny as an obstacle in their way. In the underworld, everyone's time, even Johnny 'Pops', 'The Old Bastard' comes to an untimely end.
