Distribution:

FilmCAN is proud to be Canada’s only provider of digital downloadable feature and short length media content.

We currently offer all files in mpeg4 (h.264; 640x480) format, which is the highest quality iPod compatible format, and is also great for most laptops and computer screens, as well as cell phones; it's not really designed for big-screen (30”+) TV viewing. Check back in the next few months, as DVD-equivalent quality is in the pipeline.

For a look at mpeg4 (h.264) in action, check out the short films in our FREE VIDEO PODCAST, a collection of videos and interviews.

FilmCAN movies and podcasts are best viewed using iTunes and with QuickTime 7, and you may have to install both programs to play our files. Check out our DOWNLOAD FAQ if you have more questions.

Feature films:
A Girl is a Girl  •  Cowards Bend the Knee  •  Dreamtrips  •  Grass  •  Hard Core Logo  •  Highway 61
Low Self-Esteem Girl  •  Male Fantasy  •  Outrageous!  •  Rollercoaster  •  Roadkill
Tales From the Gimli Hospital  •  Trains of Winnipeg
Short Films & other media:
Dream Tower / Echoes Without Saying  •  Sissy Boy Slap Party / The Workbooks
The Dead Father / Sombra Dolorosa  •  Twitch City – Season One
Feature films:
A Girl is a Girl
Purchase here <
With its indie soundtrack (Superconductor, etc.) and incestuous twenty-something hipsters, A Girl is a Girl is an impressive debut by writer-director Reginald Harkema. Inspired by Godard, the director of Monkey Warfare previously built a strong reputation editing some of the best of Canadian cinema (Hard Core Logo: Falling Angels; Last Night). In a Girl is a Girl, he offers us Trevor, a guy in his mid-twenties searching for his ideal girlfriend in all the wrong places. Trevor charms three women in rapid succession: Clarissa, a sorority girl; Karen, a friend's ex-girlfriend; and Lisa, the woman who comes closest to his ideal. But, as Trevor shares his love of sushi, fashion and vintage clothes the girls soon inevitably start to fade away. A compelling portrait of the impact of perspective on the existence of love.
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Reginald Harkema
1999, Canada
87 mins
Cowards Bend the Knee
Purchase here <
Set in a shadow-suffused hockey arena and a Mabuse-like beauty salon-slash-abortion clinic lined with two-way mirrors, Cowards is twisted and poisoned wish-fulfillment: the mythomaniacal Maddin casts ’himself‘ (actually, Darcy Fehr) as a hockey sniper made lily-livered by mother and daughter femme fatales, and resurrects his father as the team? radio broadcaster and his own romantic antagonist. And it all takes place within a drop of sperm. Originally presented as an installation in ten peepholes at Toronto? Power Plant gallery and the 2003 Rotterdam Film Festival.
related links:
www.winnipegfilmgroup.com
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Guy Maddin
2003, Canada
64 mins
DREAMTRIPS
Purchase here <
Dreamtrips is a time-traveling, continents-traversing journey about a young Hong Kong woman in Toronto who, sufferring from insomnia and worried sick over a missing boyfriend, decides to take a trip into the dream world through computer networking. Inevitably, she ends up with more than she bargains for, but, in the end, all seems to boil down to the simple pleasure of a cup of Hong Kong style "milk tea".
related links:
Interview with Kal Ng
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Kal Ng
1999, Canada
97 mins
Grass
Purchase here <
Award-winning director Ron Mann (Comic Book Confidential, Twist) hooks up with actor/activist Woody Harrelson to deal you Grass, a highly spirited and innovative look into one of America’s most deeply rooted cultural myths: “the evils of marijuana.” Find out how a nice person like yourself became a dangerous criminal. Includes special bonus features.
related links:
Sphinx Productions
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Ron Mann
1999, Canada
90 mins
Hard Core Logo
Purchase here <
Bruce McDonald’s classic mock-rock-doc is a by turns moving and piercing examination of friendship and betrayal, success and self-hatred – everything that fuels punk rock. Lead singer Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon) uses false pretenses to convince guitarist Billy Tallent (Callum Keith Rennie) to reform Hard Core Logo for a reunion tour across Canada. Tallent agrees, but only as a favour to Dick (and because he expects to be joining a much more successful rock group very shortly). As the reformed crew travel from town to town, their relationship slowly unravels, as does the psyche of bass player John Oxenberger (John Pyper-Ferguson). Serene moments of landscape-induced introspection contrast beautifully with the inherently delinquent humour of a group on the run from its past, toward a future that’s never been less assured. 
related links:
TRAILERS
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Bruce McDonald
1996, Canada
92 mins
Highway 61
Purchase here <
Pokey Jones (screenwriter Don McKellar), a naive Canadian barber and aspiring jazz musician from Thunder Bay, meets Jackie Bangs (Valerie Buhagiar), a flamboyant roadie who needs someone to drive her and her "brother's" corpse to New Orleans. Jackie and Pokey set out along Ontario provincial highway 61, coffin strapped to the top of the car, following Bob Dylan's famous U.S. Highway 61 south through the heart of the country. Chaos ensues thanks to the surreal characters encountered en route, the drugs secretly stashed within the body, and pursuit by the hirsute Mr. Skin (Earl Pastko), who believes he's Satan and who wants to claim the corpse for its soul, which he claims to have purchased sometime ago.
related links:
TRAILERS
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Bruce McDonald
1991, Canada
102 mins
Low Self-Esteem Girl
Purchase here <
Featuring cameos and starring roles from a who?s who of the Vancouver independent music scene (including Destroyer?s Dan Bejar, Jason Zumpano and the New Pornographer?s Carl Newman), Blaine Thurier?s debut feature film follows a generous but gullible young woman (Corinna Hammond) who is sexually exploited by a pot dealer and his clients. At the same time, a demon-possessed virgin (Rob McBeth) falls in love with her, but his Christian youth group pastor (A.C. Newman) won't let him date her until she converts. While the potheads conspire, the Christians apply pressure -- will Lois be a saint or a sinner? Or will she learn there's really no difference? Winner of best feature film at the SXSW film festival (2000).
related links:
TRAILER
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Blaine Thurier
2000, Canada
96 mins
Male Fantasy
Purchase here <
Divorced from his wife and reality, deluded eccentric Andrew (Robert Dayton) applies a magical philosophy to his romantic life in order to rise from his obsessions, become a successful lady's man, and achieve godhood. With the superhuman persistence of a door-to-door salesman, he tangles with obstacles thrown up by a resentful friend (Steve Wood), his lingering feelings for his wife (Cindy Wolfe), and the refusal of reality to co-operate with his plan. His determination brings him closer to his goals but fatal landmines are often hidden in fulfilled wishes. Featuring original music by A.C. Newman and The Sun City Girls.
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Blaine Thurier
2004, Canada
78 mins
Outrageous!
Purchase here <
It sounds like a joke: a bashful drag queen and a young schizophrenic bring out the best in each other. Robin (Craig Russell) is a hairdresser who hasn't quite gathered the courage to get on stage and do drag. But when an old school friend named Liza (Hollis McLaren) appears at his door in a robe and nightgown, having just run away from a mental hospital where she was voluntarily committed, her manic energy gives him the strength to act on his desires. He in turn gives her a stable, loving home – until he goes to New York to audition for a drag show and his spot-on impressions of Bette, Barbra, Carol Channing, and Mae West make a splash. Just as Robin's star rises, though, a pregnant Liza spirals into misery and madness. Outrageous may sound melodramatic, but in fact it achieves a rare realism – there's no Hollywood gloss on any aspect of the characters’ crazy but skillfully-rendered lives.
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Richard Benner
1977, Canada
100 mins
RollerCOASTER
Purchase here <
There are the damned, the doom generation. Stealing the group home station wagon, a quintet of jaded juveniles invade a closed down amusement park called Wonder World which for one day and night threatens to become Teenage WasteLand. Lovers Chloe and Darrin are there for more than fun and games: after a positive pregnancy test, she wants to end their lives with a spectacular double suicide. Uncouth pals Stick and Sanj are around to see if the pair will really go through with it, and Darrin’s little brother Justin, an unnervingly quiet sketcher, is using the trip as a jumping-off point to run away to Spokane. How much of this is mere Gen-Why poseur boastfulness, and how much of it is really going to happen?
related links:
TRAILER
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Scott Smith
1999, Canada
87 mins
Roadkill
Purchase here <
Ramona (Valerie Buhagiar), who can’t drive, is sent to recover an errant band who are in danger of missing the final date of their tour. Hiring a taxi to drive her the hundreds of kilometers to get the job done, she meets a variety of characters along the way: a trainee serial killer (screenwriter Don McKellar’s brilliant breakout role) who's finding it hard to get his career off the ground; a film crew desperate for some live action gore; and a silent young man who refuses to speak since “he has nothing left to say any more.” Infused with the true independent spirit of low budget filmmaking, the conclusion wraps up the seemingly isolated plot lines in a
thumping final scene.
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Bruce McDonald
1989, Canada
80 mins
Tales From the Gimli Hospital
COMING SOON < (Canada only download)
The debut feature film from iconoclastic Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin! Perhaps the most popular movie ever made in Manitoba, this dreamlike cult film is set during a smallpox epidemic in Gimli, Manitoba near the turn of the century. Gunnar and Einar are two men who share madness, jealousy, smallpox and a small room in the Gimli Hospital. Trouble lurks because each carries a dark secret.
related links:
www.winnipegfilmgroup.com
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Guy Maddin
1988, Canada
72 mins
Trains of Winnipeg
Purchase here <
Clive Holden's collection of 14 film poems is an epic ride through a uniquely early 21st century landscape. Featuring music by Christine Fellows and Jason Tait and John K. Sampson (The Weakerthans), Trains of Winnipeg presents suburban and urban dystopias, explores the politics of form and the form of personal politics, and celebrates the raw joy of moving pictures, sound, colour and light.
related links:
www.trainsofwinnipeg.com
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Clive Holden
2005, Canada
89 mins
Short Films & other media:
Dream Tower / Echoes Without Saying
Purchase here <
A feature length bundle of two of director Ron Mann's counter cultural studies. Dream Tower is an incisive look into Toronto’s notorious Rochdale College, an eighteen storey high rise completed in 1968, and intended as a free college; instead Rochdale quickly turned into an experimental living environment peopled by artists, draft dodgers and hippies. Echoes Without Saying (28mins) looks at CoachHouse Press, an innovative Toronto-based publishing and printing house.
related links:
Sphinx Productions
$8.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Ron Mann
1994 / 1983, Canada
47 mins / 28 mins
Sissy Boy Slap Party / The Workbooks
Purchase here <
Sissy Boy Slap Party
Originally commissioned as a four-minute short in support of the Saddest Music in the World, this longer version is an exercise in grafting the Three Stooges onto a Kenneth Anger lilac bush. Now contains 50% more slapping.

The Workbooks
A collection of rarely seen Maddin shorts! Includes: Fuse Boy (4:00); Rooster (3:54); Zookeeper (3:53); Chimney (3:52); Audition 01 (5:04); Audition 02 (2:33).
related links:
www.winnipegfilmgroup.com
$5.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Guy Maddin
Various Dates, Canada
30 mins
The Dead Father / Sombra Dolorosa
Purchase here <
Dead Father, The
A grey comedy about a boy who keeps forgetting, and a man who cheats on his wife by dying.

Sombra Dolorosa
In this Maxi-Mexi-Melancolour short, the widow Paramo attempts to prevent further familial tragedy and her daughter Dolores wants to join her father, the recently deceased Don Paramo, in death and by taking on El Muerto, Death himself, in the wrestling ring.
$5.99 CAN
credits:
Director – Guy Maddin
1985 / 2004, Canada
23 mins / 7 mins
Twitch City (Season One)
Purchase here < (Canada only download)
Imagine a television show co-produced by Marshall McLuhan and
Dr. Timothy Leary, and you have Twitch City, a trippy subversive
anti-sitcom in which Don McKellar (Last Night; Monkey Warfare; The Drowsy Chaperone) stars as couch latke Curtis ,i living the dialed-in dream of doing nothing but watching...and watching...and watching. Produced in the low-rent, post-school fumblings of mid-adolescence, the show is set in Toronto’s then down (1997) but not out Kensington Market. Originally aired on Bravo and CBC, Twitch City's episodic subversions are graced by co-stars Molly Parker (Kissed; Deadwood), Callum Keith Rennie (Hard Core Logo), some of the best work of Daniel MacIvor, Bruce McCulloch (The Kids in the Hall) as regular talk show host Rex Reilley, and guest appearances by the likes of Joyce De Witt (Three’s Company). Music by Bob Wiseman and the 16mm photography of Danny Novak directed by Bruce McDonald provide each of Twitch City’s 2 seasons with a consistent visual style that, along with increasingly obtuse studies by writers McKellar and Bob Martin (The Drowsy Chaperone, Slings and Arrows), paint a romantic portrait of late 90’s Toronto market apartment through a televised looking glass.

Bonus: Exclusive FilmCAN interview and walking tour of contemporary Kensington Market with Don McKellar (10mins)
related links:
One Couch Potato, Gently Roasted (NYT-Dennis Lim)
$11.99 CAN (entire Season)
credits:
Director – Bruce McDonald
1997, Canada
130 mins