Three minutes. The time to leave a message. Passing the baton and run 1600 meters. To cook an egg. The time to make a decision that can change your life.
Seven short films - each one focused on the plight of a different child protagonist.
Mia is a rebellious teenager on the verge of being kicked out of school. Her hard-partying mother, Joanne, neglects Mia's welfare in favor of her own, and her younger sister hangs out with a much older crowd. Sparks fly between Mia and Connor, Joanne's new boyfriend, and he encourages Mia to pursue her interest in dance. As the boundaries of the relationships become blurred, Mia and Joanne compete for Connor's affection.
Despite her sheltered upbringing, Jenny is a teen with a bright future; she's smart, pretty, and has aspirations of attending Oxford University. When David, a charming but much older suitor, motors into her life in a shiny automobile, Jenny gets a taste of adult life that she won't soon forget.
A drama teacher's taboo relationship with an unstable student strikes a nerve in her jealous classmate, sparking a vengeful chain of events within their suburban high school that draws parallels to "The Crucible".
Marie violates tradition in a small German town of Lauscha, to become the first female glassblower in in 1890. Her glass ball decorations find a new market in America.
Two sisters from Indiana, the wide-eyed and innocent Mae Thorpe, and her more streetwise sister June, move into the Rolf House for Homeless Girls in New York. With June's help, Mae obtains a job as a stenographer for the scientist Joseph von Schraeder, while June gets work as a telegraph operator at Western Union.
Main character Esther feels like she doesn't fit into the 'elite' and takes the big showdown with those who always have.
An elderly widow (Joan Benac) starts to wonder what happened to a would-be lover from her past who appeared with her in a live televised drama in the 1950s. After discovering the show in CBC’s archive, her granddaughter Audrey (Deragh Campbell) attempts to try and track the man down.
June R, an orphan, was born in the month of June, for which she was named. She works in an advertising agency. One day she happens to come across a middle-aged woman hurt badly in an accident.
Pia is coming back to her mediterranean family to annonce that she wants to emancipate herself.
In 1995, several cargo containers are discovered high in the Bolivian Andes. Inside are potentially toxic chemicals, and local policeman Mariscal soon becomes charged with the task of smuggling the containers into neighboring Chile. He recommissions an old train to haul the toxic waste out of Bolivia, but encounters one mishap after another, beginning with the local townspeople who know what's inside, halting the train's path.
In a remote fishing island in the 50's, Pepito grows up learning the trade of his mother, Rosa, the only midwife capable of delivering the newborn babies of their community. At first, the young son doesn't mind the unusual arrangement, but as he grows older, he begins to resist the role traditionally meant only for women. In time, Pepito's coming of age intersects with the lives of the other islanders, whose beliefs and struggles become critical impetus to his maturity.
A young woman’s charming but overbearing father helps her move out of her wealthy older boyfriend’s apartment.
Ada, a reserved young woman with a passion for entomology, travels north with Marissa, her free-spirited musician girlfriend. She's finally meeting the three brothers who helped raise Marissa: the paternal Ozzie, sensitive Arthur, and wild child Wren. As Marissa and her kin settle into their familial dynamics, Ada finds herself on the outside looking in. Desperate to make a good impression over the course of a weekend packed with fun and frivolity, Ada instead struggles to find common ground, opening fissures in the one relationship she needs the most.
A prominent lesbian couple adopts a child who gets diagnosed with a genetic predisposition for violence, and they must contend with their hard-lined stance on acceptance while attempting to raise the perfect family in the spotlight.
When Chand arrives in Brampton, Ontario to meet her new husband, she leaves behind a loving family and supportive community. Now, in a new country, she finds herself living in a modest suburban home with seven other people and two part-time tenants. Inside the home, she is at the mercy of her husband's temper, and her mother-in-law's controlling behaviour.
Lucille and Joe have moved to Gozo, a tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Malta. They have a nice car, a steady income, a beautiful farmhouse with breathtaking views and a swimming pool. They seem to have it all. But when a young tourist goes missing on the island, Joe's disquieted conscience begins to get the better of him. As the buried horrors of Lucille and Joe's past resurface, the cracks begin to show in their homespun paradise.
A missionary’s wife questions her needs to "save souls" after finding solace in her new friendship with a Ngarrindjeri woman.