The Kingston Canadian Film Festival is the largest festival in the world dedicated exclusively to Canadian film. Enjoy these read- and watch-alikes to keep the festival vibes going all year long.
Find Part One of our KCFF 2022 collection here and Part Two here.
Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq
Pairs with Bootlegger. Tanya Tagaq’s fierce, tender novel of growing up in the North. An unforgettable sense-shifting mix of fiction and memoir, poetry and prose.
I am a Damn Savage/What Have You Done to My Country? by An Antane Kapesh
Pairs with Bootlegger. An award-winning translation by one of the first Indigenous women writers to publish in Quebec, about the changes caused by land dispossession, policing, and the introduction of alcohol to her Inuit community.
Permanent Astonishment by Tomson Highway
Pairs with Bootlegger. A big-hearted, joyful memoir from one of Canada’s most well-known Indigenous playwrights and performers, with insights into the Cree experience of culture, conquest, and survival.
The Winter We Danced: Voices from the Past, the Future, and the Idle No More Movement
Pairs with Bootlegger. This beautiful collection of writing, art, and images gives context and response to the ongoing movement of justice and Indigenous self-determination.
Nationhood Interrupted by Sylvia McAdam
Pairs with Bootlegger. How the oral tradition of Cree laws signified by stories, songs, and ceremonies, and using animals and land markings, has turned into written records to revitalize Indigenous nationhood. McAdam is a co-founder of the international movement Idle No More.
Club Native (film)
Pairs with Bootlegger. A look at Indigenous identity through the stories of four women in Kahnawake, and the history and conflicts in establishing and maintaining women’s Indigenous identity from the Indian Act through Bill C31 to the present day.
Prohibition (film)
Pairs with Bootlegger. What happens when a government mandates a dry nation? This three-part series is about the effects of law enforcement in an attempt to curb alcohol abuse.
Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune by Roselle Lim
Pairs with Carmen. The sights, sounds and smells of San Francisco, blended with mouth-watering food descriptions, give this book a strong sense of place. A story of reconnecting, romance and community.
Happiness For Beginners by Katherine Center
Pairs with Carmen. A divorcee struggling to bounce back enrolls in a wilderness survival course. Nothing goes as expected, but sometimes that’s what we need most.
Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
Pairs with Carmen. A warm, humourous book brings together a small-town widow and a struggling former major-league pitcher who are helping each other find a new start in life.
Malta & Gozo – Lonely Planet Travel Guide
Pairs with Carmen. For those inspired by the stunning views of Malta, a travel guide to help plan an adventure of your own!
Footprints: In Search Of Future Fossils by David Farrier
Pairs with The Dawnsayer. A profound meditation on the Anthropocene and the search for the industrial, chemical, geological 'footprints' that humans will be leaving behind.
Scatter, Adapt, And Remember by Annalee Newitz
Pairs with The Dawnsayer. A work of speculative popular science that focuses on humanity's long history of dodging the extinction bullet.
Notes From An Apocalypse by Mark O'Connell
Pairs with The Dawnsayer. Investigative and personal, Notes from an Apocalypse is an affecting, humorous, and surprisingly hopeful meditation on our current moment.
Apocalypse Any Day Now by Tea Krulos
Pairs with The Dawnsayer. Funny, yet also deeply frightening, the ideas Krulos explores can be ridiculously outlandish to alarmingly close.
The Sunken Land Begins To Rise Again by M. John Harrison
Pairs with Hands That Bind. This unsettling and eerie novel follows a struggling couple in Brexit Britain who disappear into worlds of conspiracy theories and folklore as strange events keep occurring.
One Who Has Been Here Before by Becca Babcock
Pairs with Hands That Bind. When Emma’s Master’s research draws her back to Nova Scotia, she must confront the secrets of her birth family, the mysterious Gaugin family whose children were removed from a compound decades before. This contemporary gothic fiction was inspired by the Goler clan of Annapolis Valley, an isolated family whose crimes became infamous in Nova Scotia.
Daughters of the Lake by Wendy Webb
Pairs with Hands That Bind. In this suspenseful work of gothic fiction, Kate seeks to uncover the mystery behind a folktale when the bodies of a murdered woman and infant are discovered on the shores of Lake Superior. The strangest part? This dead woman keeps appearing in Kate’s dreams.
Castle Rock (Season One)
Pairs with Hands That Bind. In this psychological horror series, stories from Stephen King’s works play out in an epic saga set in the woodlands of Maine. If you enjoyed the supernatural elements and psychological drama of Hands That Bind, try this series.
All That Man Is by David Szalay
Pairs with Islands. Nine men. Each of them at a different stage of life, each of them away from home, and each of them striving to understand just what it means to be alive, here and now.
Mixed Plate by Jo Koy
Pairs with Islands. A stunning, hilarious memoir that illuminates the burning drive and unique humor that make Jo Koy one of today's most successful comedians
Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco
Pairs with Islands. On a clear day in winter, the battered corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulled out of the Hudson River. Gone, too, is the only manuscript of his final book, a work meant to rescue him from obscurity by exposing the crimes of the Filipino ruling families. Miguel, his student and only remaining friend, sets out for Manila to investigate.
Spying On Whales by Nick Pyenson
Pairs with Last of the Right Whales. Full of rich storytelling and scientific intrigue, Spying on Whales looks at the past and to an uncertain future for earth's most enigmatic creatures.
We Are All Whalers by Michael J. Moore
Pairs with Last of the Right Whales. An optimistic take on the new technologies of ropeless fishing and acoustic tracking of whale migrations that could make a positive difference.
Underwater Wild by Craig Foster and Ross Frylinck
Pairs with Last of the Right Whales. From the creators of the award-winning documentary My Octopus Teacher, an immersive journey into the world that inspired a film that holds transformative lessons for everyone.
In The Company Of Whales (film)
Pairs with Last of the Right Whales. An informative and beautifully shot documentary of these gentle giants of the watery realm
Whale Rider (film)
Pairs with Last of the Right Whales. When Paikea's grandfather refuses to believe she can be a leader of a Maori tribe she prepares for the ultimate sacrifice to save her people and becomes the Whale Rider. Also avaialble on Kanopy.
Love After The End
Pairs with Wildhood. This groundbreaking fiction collection showcases a number of new and emerging 2SQ (Two-Spirit and queer) Indigenous writers from across Turtle Island.
Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead
Pairs with Wildhood. Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, has built a life in the city as a cybersex worker. Preparing to return to "the rez" for his stepfather's funeral, Jonny sifts through memories of his former life in this coming-of-age story.
Fire Song by Adam Garnet Jones
Pairs with Wildhood. Explores the struggles of two Indigenous gay teenagers trying to find their place in the world. While dealing with the emotional aftermath of his younger sister's suicide, Shane tries to build a relationship with David and carve out a better future for himself.
The Sun At Midnight (film)
Pairs with Wildhood. Filmed at the Arctic Circle, The Sun at Midnight tells the story of an unexpected friendship between a hunter obsessed with finding a missing caribou herd and a teenage rebel who gets lost while on the run.
The Grizzlies (film)
Pairs with Wildhood. In a small Arctic town struggling with the highest suicide rate in North America, a group of Inuit students' lives are transformed when they are introduced to the sport of lacrosse.
A Short History of the Blockade by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Pairs with WOCHIIGIILO: End of the Peace. Leanne Simpson writes of the Beaver as an Indigenous relative and natural creator of river dams, and how that relates to Indigenous blockades as both negation and affirmation.
Northern Light: Power, Land, and Memory of Water by Kazim Ali
Pairs with WOCHIIGIILO: End of the Peace. Returning to where his immigrant father worked on the construction of a hydroelectric dam, the author explores his childhood memories and the effects of the dam on northern Manitoban Indigenous communities.
Dammed: The Politics of Loss and Survival in Anishinaabe Territory by Brittany Luby
Pairs with WOCHIIGIILO: End of the Peace. A look at how government and developers brought hydroelectric dams to Indigenous communities along the Winnipeg River to benefit Settler communities, with the author’s collection of texts and testimonies from her paternal ancestors.
Return of the River (film)
Pairs with WOCHIIGIILO: End of the Peace. The uplifting film of Vancouver Island’s Huu-ay-aht people and their re
Thirst for Power (film)
Pairs with WOCHIIGIILO: End of the Peace. The search for water and its use as electrical energy throughout human history, and hopeful connections between a secure future and the preservation of a powerful resource.
Return of the River: The Largest Dam Removal in History (film)
Pairs with WOCHIIGIILO: End of the Peace. A hopeful documentary about a community determined to reclaim the health of its river and their successful attempts to do the impossible.
Anthropocene (film)
Pairs with WOCHIIGIILO: End of the Peace. The visually stunning, deeply stirring documentary of human effects on the earth, filmed in locations all over the world, including British Columbia.
