At the age 14, following a quarrel with a friend from school, Brittany turned to her mother for comfort. Instead of comforting her, Brittany’s mother lashed out at her, calling her selfish. From that day on, Brittany began to internalize her feelings. Her insecurities grew and she turned to drugs and alcohol. At a party with friends from school, her excessive drinking led to sexual abuse. This made things worse. She began to engage in self-harm practice, cutting her arms regularly. The more depressed she got, the worse the self-inflicted harm became until she was hospitalized for it.
Grade levels: Senior High (10-12)
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Identifying Transgender: David’s Story
As far back as David can remember, he did not identify with being a little girl. He wished he were a boy. Depression and anxiety set in and it just got worse until puberty hit and he could no longer deal with it. He told his parents that he identified with being a boy and he couldn’t go on any longer. The moment he changed his name to David and decided that he is male, life started making sense. Happiness set in like he had never experienced and, with his parents’ and sister’s support, David has finally found comfort in his life choice as transgender.
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Cyberbullying: Cristina’s Story
At the age of 13, a boy approached Cristina, asking her to be his girlfriend. She declined the boy’s offer and he became angry, threatening that she would regret it. One day Cristina came to school and everyone eyed her every move, whispering and laughing. She felt something was terribly wrong. A friend told her this boy had circulated a nude photo online, saying that it was Cristina, although the person’s face was not seen. She was mortified and ran home. She thought that her parents, the school, and even the authorities would be able to put a quick stop to it, but she was wrong. This devastation turned her into a tormented young woman who could not escape the rumors for 7 years. It destroyed her life as a teenager, broke her spirit, and ultimately broke her will to live.
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I’m Not Addicted: Will’s Story
You can become addicted to just about anything. It becomes a serious problem when it takes you away from the things you normally do. Some people have a predisposition to addiction and Will’s story shows that anyone can fall dangerously into addiction. It started with video games addiction which was the beginning of the slippery slope that almost cost him his life. As a child, he dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player. He could never imagine that, at the age of 17, he would be living on the streets, addicted to crack cocaine and near death. His remarkable story now brings so much hope to those that struggle with addiction and he now dedicates his life to helping youth.
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Don’t Diss My Abilities: Michelle’s Story
As a child and teenager, Michelle endured a series of events that was nothing short of soul crushing. She faced sexual abuse as a child and kept it a secret for years. At the age of sixteen she acquired a brain disease that rendered her blind. Her so-called friends bullied her at school. She fell into a deep depression and turned to drugs, alcohol, and self-harm to numb her pain, but nothing seemed to help. She felt her only option was suicide. Thankfully, a miraculous turn of events saved her life and now this remarkable young woman faces all her adversity with such positive energy that it has become infectious and humbling to all that know and love her.
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Breaking Poverty: Billionaire PA’s Story
Poverty, drugs, violence, abuse, family deaths… Demitrius experienced all of it as a child and young teenager. He became a great salesman. The only problem is he sold drugs on the street, landing him in jail. What else you can you do when you live in such poverty? His grandmother planted a thought in his head, “If you could use the focused energy you have in selling drugs and channel it into something good, you will be unstoppable.” Taking her advice, he not only turned his life around but is now saving so many others from the hardships that he endured as a teenager. He is a true inspiration to so many and his goal is to reach a billion people.
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Broken Families: Lydia’s Story
Lydia’s life as a child was filled with family dysfunction, drugs, abuse, and the death of her mother. She ended up in the foster care system before the age of 10 and would endure moving between 36 different foster homes. Lydia was left with a lack of identity, belonging, and self-worth. The longing for her family and her loneliness created a cycle of destruction or “acting out.” Nothing or no one could fill the void she felt. Somehow, she found an incredible strength to turn her life around. Living out of a car, she put herself through school and became determined to have her own family, providing a loving home for her two children; something she never had.
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Legal Highs
A documentary exploring the recent rise in Legal Highs available in Britain and the effect these new substances are having on our Youth and Society. With content from young users of these drugs and Scientists and Therapists we explore every angle of this growing pastime and rapidly growing problem.
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Transgender Parents
TRANSGENDER PARENTS is about love, life and kids after a gender transition. It shares the struggles and strengths of several trans women and trans men navigating different stages of parenting: from pregnancy, through raising infants, toddlers and teenagers. Some, who transitioned prior to founding their families, experience fertility clinics and hospital births; others, who transitioned in the presence of their kids work to renegotiate their identity and relationships within their families. All are openly out in the world as trans and as parents in ways that weren’t possible 20 years ago.
Syrus and Nik, both in their 30s, live in downtown Toronto. We follow their story from Syrus’s pregnancy to the 2nd birthday of young Amélie as they make their way in the world as black gay trans men with a blond blue-eyed daughter.
Aiyyana is a Haudenosaunee grandmother who was born male and has journeyed through genders and considers herself a transformed woman. An accomplished writer and award-winning theatre artist, Aiyyana is building a home on her childhood reserve along with one of her adult children.
Originally, from Alberta, Jenna is a 30-year-old trans-mother-to-be who runs an organic farm with her partner near Montreal. We earn about her path to motherhood, and witness the hours following the arrival of her baby.
Stefonknee is a trans woman of 45 who came out when her 7 children were almost all teenagers. The process of finding herself and going public has been too much for most of her family to bear. She has moved to Toronto from rural Ontario where she is a speaker and activist. We follow her on a visit to her hometown as she tries to heal broken connections.
Hershel, a Jewish trans man in his late 60s, is a psychotherapist whose son was 19 years old when he transitioned. We witness their loving and at times difficult relationship as both speak candidly about their experiences as parent and child over the last fifteen years.
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The Saviour of Ceylon – The story of Leonard Birchall
All wars produce heroes but rarely in a global conflict do the actions of one man affect the direction and possibly even the result of the whole war. In Leonard Birchall’s case that is precisely what happened. The young Canadian Squadron Leader from St. Catherines, Ontario, on patrol in the Indian Ocean in April, 1943, spotted a Japanese fleet on its way to attack the British base at Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. Birchall, knowing he would be shot down, radioed a description of the makeup of the task force back to base. He was plucked out of the ocean by the Japanese, and endured three and a half years of captivity serving as Senior Allied Officer in four Japanese prison camps. Leonard Birchall kept a detailed record of that experience in diaries which he buried – these were dug up after the war and formed the basis for a number of successful war crime trials. Winston Churchill, even before he knew Leonard Birchall’s name, or that he had survived, called him “The Saviour of Ceylon.”