Movies by Gordon Pinsent
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The Thomas Crown Affair
Young businessman Thomas Crown is bored and decides to plan a robbery and assigns a professional agent with the right information to the job. However, Crown is soon betrayed yet cannot blow his cover because he’s in love.
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Away from Her
Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.
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Silence of the North
Director Allan King's 1981 drama, based on true events, stars Ellen Burstyn as a strong-willed woman struggling to survive with her family in the Canadian wilderness.
The Red Green Story: We're All in This Together
This behind-the-scenes special features cast members musing over public television's beloved "The Red Green Show," the wacky sketch series revolving around the wit and wisdom of outdoors-man, handyman and populist philosopher Red Green (Steve Smith). Backstage anecdotes, rare outtakes and cast commentary shed light on the smart writing and spot-on acting that helped make this unlikely show such a long-running success.
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The Old Man and the Sea
An old fisherman makes the biggest catch of his life.
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Flight of the Butterflies
It takes two or three generations for the monarch butterfly to reach the Canadian breeding grounds, but it is one "supergeneration" that makes the 2,000 mile return trip back south into central Mexico. The documentary film covers Dr Fred Urquhart's interest in monarch butterflies, with perspectives of Urquhart as a child wondering where the butterflies went, his years of research and study into their life and migration, to his time decades-later as a senior scientist looking back at his investigations and discoveries about the insect's life ...
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Life Doesn't Frighten Me
Insecure thirteen year-old Esther Weary is on the brink of puberty and must come to terms with the realities of becoming a woman with her well-meaning grandpa and his pet pug.
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Quarantined
A family of doctors that runs a medical clinic finds itself up against a sudden cholera epidemic and other difficulties like a movie star who refuses to cooperate with her treatment.
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Klondike Fever
This movie chronicles Jack London's epic journey from San Francisco to the Klondike gold fields in 1898.
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A Passage from Burnt Islands
In his crusade for literacy, principal Ray Brown enlisted the help of the community and broke through the cycle of illiteracy in a small Newfoundland fishing village. He turned the struggling elementary school into a place where students were eager to learn and instilled in parents a sense of hope for their children's future.
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Newman's Law
LAPD Officer Newman has not gotten the reputation of a straight arrow by avoiding conflict when fighting for right. In this police drama, his honesty is put to the test when he and his partner discover an international drug ring involving some of the department's highest ranking officers.
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Blood Clan
A family is executed by soldiers for cannibalism - except for the little girl, Katy Bane McKay. She is adopted by Judge Mackay and goes home with him to Canada, where she grows up with no knowledge of her family's past. Then, in the present, several deaths occur and people begin to think it's Katy Bane McKay.
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The Grand Seduction
A small fishing village must procure a local doctor to secure a lucrative business contract. When unlikely candidate and big city doctor Paul Lewis lands in their lap for a trial residence, the townsfolk rally together to charm him into staying. As the doctor’s time in the village winds to a close, acting mayor Murray French has no choice but to pull out all the stops and begin The Grand Seduction.
The Time of the Tar Sands
A promotional video produced by the Alberta government in 1975, "The time of the tar sands", featuring Gordon Pinsent. credit: Archives of Alberta.
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Pirate's Passage
Set in 1952 Grey Rocks – a centuries old town that was famous 250 years ago as a favored port of pirates – Pirate’s Passage follows the story of 12-year-old Jim. Fraught by the death of his father and forced to endure schoolyard bullying each day, Jim manages to carry on, buoyed by his optimistic imagination and fueled by his sense of adventure. The sudden arrival of Captain Johnson, whose small sailboat has been thrown off course by a storm, changes Jim’s life. The Captain quickly becomes a mentor and friend to Jim, giving him extraordinar...
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The Shipping News
An emotionally-beaten man with his young daughter moves to his ancestral home in Newfoundland to reclaim his life.
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Two Lovers and a Bear
Set in a small town near the North Pole where roads lead to nowhere, the story follows Roman and Lucy, two burning souls who come together to make a leap for life and inner peace.
Newfoundland Scene
A portrait of Newfoundland that records a way of life that has all but disappeared.
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Blackwood
This short film studies the works of one of Canada's greatest contemporary etchers - Newfoundland-born David Blackwood. The artist himself guides viewers through a step-by-step explanation of the etching process. Scenes of his hometown, examples of his own work and vivid tales of an old mariner recall the tragic seal hunts and a way of life that has now vanished.
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Who Has Seen the Wind
The coming-of-age of adolescent Brian O'Connal in small town Depression-era Saskatchewan is told. The son of the local pharmacist Gerald O'Connal, Brian is in many ways a typical boy, who dislikes school if only because of his run-ins with the nervous schoolteacher, Miss MacDonald, and who tries to catch gophers with his friends, Artie and Forbsie. His best friend and protector is slightly older Jonathan Ben, better known as The Young Ben (as his father is referred to as The Ben), who is highly regarded as a problem by those in town who see ...