Film POP 2026 - Full Lineup
This year, Film POP took shape through a collaborative effort. The programming was conceived by staff, music lovers, as well as fellow arts and culture organizations. We are grateful to our co-presentors for helping us bring unique and exciting films to our audience.
Programming for 2026 includes a robust slate of rock-docs covering beloved indie scene stalwarts and underappreciated gems alike, along with narrative shorts and features tracing music’s role as a force of nature and way of life.
Kanatenhs - When The Pine Needles Fall
Ellen Gabriel | Canada, 2023 | 22 mins
SEPT 23, 18h00, Cinéma Moderne
Co-presented by the David Suzuki Foundation
This documentary continues telling the 300-year-old story of the Kanien’kehá:ka of Kanehsatà:ke’s fight for their Homelands, by focusing on the role of the women on the first day of the 78-day Siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawake, commonly known as the 1990 Mohawk Crisis. The screening is followed by a discussion with director Ellen Gabriel.
Darlene Naponse | Canada, 2025 | 95 mins
SEPT 23, 19h30, Cinéma Moderne
Co-presented by the Indigenous Screen Office
AKI (Anishinaabemowin for “land” or “earth”) is a visually immersive documentary set in Atikameksheng Anishnawbek, Northern Ontario. Told through the rhythms of the seasons, Anishinaabemowin dialogue, and an evocative score by Cris Derksen (North Tall Cree), it reflects a people’s enduring relationship with their land. The screening is followed by a discussion with director Darlene Naponse.
The screening of AKI is dedicated to Cris Derksen, who tragically passed away in a car accident this May. We were planning to do a live score and screening with Cris for the festival this year. When we approached her about the idea, Cris responded with her usual enthusiasm and excitement to collaborate and innovate. We'll continue to honour her musical legacy and punk rock spirit!
Short films by Skawennati
SEPT 23, 21h30, Cinéma Moderne
Co-presented by PHI
This screening is being held as a prelude to the symposium on Indigenous performance art, Encore!, which will take place at the PHI on November 28 and 29, 2026.
80 Minutes, 80 Movies, 80s Music (1999, 30 mins)
Re-imagined versions of music videos of 80s songs featuring various friends of Skawennati.
Calico & Camouflage: Assemble! (2025, 3 mins)
A protest song with awesome Indigenous avatars wearing fierce threads of calico and camouflage
Welcome to the Garden (2024, 14 mins)
With an original song, this work tells the story of how the Three Sisters, who are cherished characterizations of corn, beans, and squash, became superheroes.
Greetings from Skyworld (2020, 1 min)
A looping machinima without dialogue, imagining that a faraway planet did not explode, but was somehow saved, and its people–our ancestors–wish to let us know that they are alright, and that they are still connected to us.
xox Visits the King (2024, 8 mins)
xox is Skawennati's avatar who visits the King of England to explain what's what.
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco
Sam Jones | USA, 2002 | 92 mins
SEPT 24, 18h30, Cinéma Moderne
Photographer Sam Jones takes us behind-the-scenes of American rock band Wilco while recording their fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Originally intended as a showcase of the band’s creative process, the film crew catches unexpected complications between the band and its record label, along with problems among the band members themselves.
Amanda Kramer | USA, 2026 | 59 mins
SEPT 24, 20h30, Cinéma Moderne
Co-presented by Image + Nation
A cinematic companion to Magdalena Bay’s eponymous album, Imaginal Disk, expands its kaleidoscopic world into a bold, visually driven narrative.
Ken Kwapis | USA, 2026 | 98 mins
SEPT 25, 18h30, Cinéma Moderne
Co-presented by Festival du Nouveau Cinéma
We Are The Shaggs tells the extraordinary true story of three sisters Betty, Dorothy and Helen Wiggin from rural New Hampshire whose father, convinced by a prophecy, forced them to form a band despite having no musical training and not wanting to. Their 1969 album became one of rock’s most unlikely cult classics, celebrated for its singular originality.
Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore?
Garth Jennings | UK, 2026 | 99 mins
SEPT 25, 20h30, Cinéma Moderne
Charting the Sheffield band’s extraordinary journey from obscurity to cultural touchstone. Fusing footage from Pulp’s biggest ever arena show (part of the global tour for More, the band’s first album in 24 years) with four decades of colourful, never-seen-before archival material.
Summer 2000: The X-Cetra Story
Ayden Mayeri | USA, 2026 | 104 mins
SEPT 26, 17h00, Cinéma Moderne
Co-presented by RIDM
X-Cetra is a pre-teen band whose homemade 2000 album unexpectedly became an underground sensation two decades later. As newfound acclaim draws them back together, they revisit their music, friendship, and the unselfconscious girlhood they’d captured in the album many years ago.
Sam Scott | Canada, 2026 | 91 mins
SEPT 26, 19h00, Cinéma Moderne
Co-presented by Fantasia International Film Festival
An indie rock band struggling to make its mark finds a possible meal ticket in an infectious new guitar riff. Unfortunately, it’s also a cursed melody that just so happens to open a portal to another, much scarier dimension.
Frank Pavich | USA & Dominican Republic, 2026 | 98 mins
SEPT 27, 17h00, Cinéma Moderne
In the Dominican town of Cabarete, bachata is a way of life. While fans across the globe dance to it with fervour, on the island where it was born, Bachata is a spiritual fabric. With five years of filming, director Frank Pavich (\\Jodorowsky’s Dune\\) captures the coming of age of Dominican child musicians, their island and the music they are poised to inherit.
Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth And Nothing Butt
Tom Stern | USA, 2026 | 106 mins
SEPT 27, 19h00, Cinéma Moderne
Co-presented by Image + Nation
Follows the story of the Butthole Surfers, the groundbreaking and influential art-punk band founded in early ‘80s Texas by frontman Gibby Haynes and guitarist Paul Leary.
