O Canada
The O Canada film series brought Yale audiences a selection of features and shorts from the True North strong and free. Spanning nearly 60 years, the series incorporated nonfiction, drama, comedy, and experimental animation, and included films in English, French, Inuktitut, Arabic, and Persian. All screenings are free and open to the public.
Presented with special thanks to the National Film Board of Canada.
Location:
Humanities Quadrangle, Lower Level
320 York Street
New Haven, CT
INCENDIES (Denis Villeneuve, 2010, 35mm, 131 mins)
POEN (Josef Reeve, 1967, DCP, 4 mins)
7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 5, 2025
Poen inaugurates our O Canada series with a prose-poem incantation from Leonard Cohen. In Incendies, twins follow their deceased mother's final commands and leave Quebec for an unnamed country in the Levant to track down the father and brother they never knew. Villeneuve's first Oscar-nominated film is a "gripping, era-jumping drama about a family melded to its war-torn past" (Chris Vognar). In French and Arabic with English subtitles. 35mm print from the Yale Film Archive, DCP from the National Film Board of Canada.
STORIES WE TELL (Sarah Polley, 2012, DCP, 108 mins)
DISTANT ISLANDS (Bettina Maylone, 1981, DCP, 6 mins)
7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025
These two looks at the mysteries of family and memory show us how we stitch together the stories of our pasts, partly through truth, partly through invention. Polley's cinematic memoir has been called "an enthralling, exquisitely layered masterpiece" (Brian D. Johnson) and "a gripping and absorbing meditation on the unknowability of other lives" (Peter Bradshaw). Introduced by Naomi Levine, Stories We Tell DCP from Roadside Attractions, Distant Islands DCP from the National Film Board of Canada.
ATANARJUAT: THE FAST RUNNER (Zacharias Kunuk, 2001, 35mm, 172 mins)
LITTLE THUNDER (Nance Ackerman & Alan Syliboy, 2009, DCP, 2 mins)
7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025
Celebrate the artistry and heritage of Indigenous Canada with two films based on legends. Little Thunder recounts a Mi'kmaq coming-of-age tale through vibrant animation. The epic Atanarjuat—named the greatest Canadian film of all time in a TIFF filmmakers and critics poll—follows an exiled young hunter as he fights the evil forces threatening his Inuit community. In Inuktitut with English Subtitles. Introduced by Jay Gitlin. 35mm print from the Yale Film Archive, DCP from the National Film Board of Canada.
UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE (Matthew Rankin, 2024, DCP, 89 mins)
IN THE SHALLOWS (Arash Akhgari, 2024, DCP, 4 mins)
7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025
Two recent releases foreground our era's feelings of dislocation and fractured communication...but in a good way. The absurdist satire Universal Language—winner of the Audience Award at Cannes—gives us three converging stories set in an off-kilter alterna-Winnipeg. "For connoisseurs of the poetic bizarre" (Ty Burr). In Persian and French with English subtitles. Introduced by Robert Gao. Universal Language DCP from Oscilloscope, In the Shallows DCP from the National Film Board of Canada.
See the full Yale Film Archive screening schedule here.