If it’s something you happen to be interested in, the National Film Board of Canada has its two Oscar nominated shorts online for free streaming. One, Dimanche (or Sunday in English), is about a little boy’s attempts to make his dreary church- and relatives-filled Sunday more entertaining. It’s decent. The other is called Wild Life and is about a British young man who migrates to live on the Canadian prairies. It’s phenomenally good; the script is fresh, the animation is very reminiscent of The Sweater (perhaps an homage), and it’s also a little bit of history lesson. I would definitely recommend watching both - free! - right here. Hopefully one of them wins come Oscar night.
Just as an aside, if you’ve never heard of the National Film Board of Canada, it’s a really interesting entity. The world’s first national film board, it’s won 12 competitive Oscars and, if I remember correctly, was given an honorary Oscar for its contribution to cinema. Their website is filled with movies you can stream for free, many of them REALLY GOOD documentaries. It’s an excellent way for Canadians to get in touch with their own country, and for non-Canadians to learn about Canada without (or with very few) mentions of hockey or peace keeping.
(That being said, a good place to start when learning about Canadian film and Canadian culture is with The Sweater; the film, and the book, are so iconic that there is a quotation from them on our $5 bill. It will give you a stilted image of Canada, and especially of rural Quebec before the Quiet Revolution, but if you’re going to sow our flag on your backpack, you may as well do a little research and watch it. You can do that for free right here.)
