Documentary:

Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights - 2011-2015

And Still We Rise Trailer
(2.35 min., 2015)

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And Still We Rise

© (70 min., 2015),

And Still We Rise is a moving documentary on resistance to the Anti-Homosexual Act (AHA) in Uganda. The film follows Richard Lusimbo, the researcher & documentation manager for Sexual Minorities Uganda, as he documents the struggle against the Anti Homosexuality Act in Uganda. The story weaves together a history of the AHA with personal stories recounting the widespread repression following passage of the Act, including the impact on the film makers / activists themselves. A story of resilience, the documentary is also a moving example of participatory documentary making. Produced by Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights and Sexual Minorities Uganda. Directed by Richard Lusimbo and Nancy Nicol, edited by Junic Wambya and Nancy Nicol with original music by Nykooyo Brian and Talented Ugandan Kuchus.

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No Easy Walk To Freedom Trailer
(2.35 min., 2015)

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No Easy Walk To Freedom

© (92 min., 2014),

a documentary filmed in Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Bangalore and rural India, investigating the social and legal struggle against section 377 of the India Penal code that criminalizes "carnal knowledge against the order of nature". No Easy Walk to Freedom is moving examination of the struggle to decriminalize homosexuality in contemporary India, told through the voices of HIV AIDS workers, queer activists, community leaders and legal experts. It is a history with far reaching implications for the struggle to remove these colonial era laws and to uphold lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender human rights worldwide. Produced and directed by Nancy Nicol, Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights, in partnership with Naz Foundation India Trust (Delhi) and Naz Foundation International in Lucknow, India.

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Telling Our Stories

© (2014)

36 video portraits created as participatory videos with Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights partners in the St. Lucia, Guyana, Belize, Jamaica, Kenya, Botswana, Uganda and India. This series was premiered at Imagining Home: Resistance, Migration, Contradiction, Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, June - October 2014.

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The Time Has Come Trailer
(2:22 min., 2013)

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The Time Has Come

© (30 min., 2013)

Through the voices of human rights defenders from across the world, this film documents the historic process leading to the UN Human Rights Council resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity. Filmed in: Nairobi, Kenya (Feb. 25-28): New York, USA (Mar. 2-4): Kathmandu, Nepal (Mar. 21-23): Brasilia, Brazil (Apr. 2-5): Oslo, Norway (Apr. 14-16) and Geneva, Switzerland (June, 2013). Co-Produced by Kim Vance, John Fisher, Sheherezade Kara and Nancy Nicol. Directed by Kim Vance, John Fisher and Sheherezade Kara (ARC International) in collaboration with Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights.

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Botho: LGBT lives in Botswana

© (12 min,. 2013)

Participatory video: LeGaBiBo/Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights. Producer/Director/Editor: Nancy Nicol, Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights.

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From Criminality to Equality
40 years of lesbian and gay movement history in Canada

This award winning documentary film series by director Nancy Nicol brings to life 40 years of lesbian and gay rights movement history, combining rarely seen archival footage with diverse voices of the movement from across Canada.

This series includes:

The End of Second Class

© 2006 Intervention Video Inc. (90 min., DVD)

The End of Second Class is a powerful documentary that traces the debate on same sex marriage in Canada up to the passage of equal marriage legislation on July 20, 2005.

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Politics of the Heart

© 2005 Intervention Video Inc. (68 min., DVD)

Politics of the Heart / La politique du coeur (available in French and English versions) is a moving portrait of lesbian and gay families who re-shaped the cultural and political landscape of Quebec by fighting for recognition of their relationships, families and homoparental rights.

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The Queer Nineties

© 2009 Intervention Video Inc. (91 min., DVD)

There was something queer about the 1990s.

At the beginning of the 1990s lesbians and gays had no recognition of their relationships in law and the Canadian government had still not included non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the Federal Human Rights Act. By the end of the decade, lesbians and gays had won relationship recognition and adoption rights in most jurisdictions in Canada. From the defeat of same-sex relationships recognition in Ontario (1994); to the Surrey School Board ban of three children’s books which depicted same-sex parents in B.C. (1997); from the role of ethno-diverse communities and labour within the LGBT movement; to the litigants and lawyers at the forefront of key Charter rights cases (Egan, M. v H., Rosenberg, Chamberlain v the Surrey School Board and Hislop v the Queen) - “the Queer Nineties” takes a look at an amazing decade in the struggle for lesbian and gay equality in Canada.

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Stand Together

© 2002 Intervention Video Inc. (124 min., DVD)

Stand Together is a documentary on the lesbian and gay liberation movement in Canada between 1967 and 1987 focusing on the human rights amendment campaign in Ontario. It draws together a rich body of documents, images and rarely seen archival footage with dramatizations and interviews, to bring to life a moving legacy.

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Other documentaries by Nancy Nicol:

One Summer in New Paltz, A Cautionary Tale

© 2008 Intervention Video Inc. (54 min., DVD)

Set against a backdrop of the Bush administration's policy of endless war and assault on civil liberties, One Summer in New Paltz is a cautionary tale of a young mayor of a small village who decided to do the unthinkable.

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Dykes Planning Tykes: Queering the Family Tree

© (61 min., 2011, produced by Nancy Nicol, Directed by Nancy Nicol with Mary J Daniel)

Faced with difficult barriers, lesbians and queer-identified women took matters into their own hands, reinventing family in the process. The film takes us into the Dykes Planning Tykes course, founded in 1997.

From Russia, in Love

© (10 min., 2009)

When a Russian court threw out their request to marry in Russia, Irina Shipitko and Irina Fedotova-Fet came to get married in Toronto, hoping their Canadian marriage will help to advance their struggle for equality and acceptance back home.

Proud Lives: Chris Bearchell

© 2007 Intervention Video Inc. (16 min., DVD)

This video is a commemoration to Chris Beachell (August 16, 1953 – February 18, 2007), celebrating her life and contribution to the lesbian and gay liberation movement in Canada.

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Pride and Resistance

© 2007 Intervention Video Inc. (16 min., DVD)

Pride and Resistance, is a series of five three-minute videos on queer history created by Nancy Nicol. Pride and Resistance takes a whirlwind tour through forty years of local and national LGBTQ history celebrating the political history of Pride Day in Toronto.

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And that's why I'm leaving (Landscapes and Stories)

© 2000 Intervention Video Inc. (16 min., DVD)

A seventeen year old Catholic youth recounts incidents of harassment by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British Army, against a backdrop of a chilling hidden camera observation of British Army and RUC patrols
of the Catholic community of the Bogside in Derry. And that's why I'm leaving, is an indictment of 30 years of repressive measures by Great Britain against the people of Northern Ireland.
This is the first video in a four part series entitled Landscapes and Stories, shot in Northern Ireland during the past decade. Dedicated to the peoples of Northern Ireland and the desire for an end to the violence.

Migrante, stories & songs of Filipino migrant workers

© 1997 Intervention Video Inc. (73 min., DVD)

Through songs by Panda Sining and interviews Migrante explores imperialism, racism and human rights abuses suffered by migrant Filipino workers in some 168 countries across the world.
The video explores the overall political relations which underlie the export of labour by the Philippines government and the impact on the Philippines of international trade developments such as Philippines 2000 and APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation). It traces an international cycle of exploitation.
Remittances by migrant workers, half of whom are domestic workers, is the major source of debt repayment of the Philippine government. In 1996, migrant workers returned 6.3 billion dollars in remittances to the Philippines. While heralded as the new heroes of the Philippines economy, migrant Filipino workers however have been subjected to racism and human rights abuses. 1,295 overseas workers were killed or committed suicide in 1995 alone.

Gay Pride and Prejudice

© 1994 Intervention Video Inc. (62 min., DVD)

Gay Pride and Prejudice juxtaposes in a satirical way - gay pride and prejudice - contrasting the street and the legislature during the events of June and July - the debate and defeat of Bill 167, The Equality Rights Statute Law Amendment Act, in the Ontario Legislation.
The video examines the historic debate on "same sex benefits". Bill 167, moved beyond the narrow confines of "non discrimination" to remove systemic discrimination against gays and lesbians in access to rights and benefits.
Gay Pride and Prejudice lends itself to a multiple layering of interpretation, through the juxtaposition of image and content on two monitors and through a series of subtextual references. Two historical figures haunt the work, Jane Austin and Oscar Wilde. Both are millennium figures - one of the 1790's: whose works give novelistic expression to the conservative ideology of Edmund Burke; but who also exposes the underlying unrest and tensions within the idealized middle class, especially of the family, sexuality and women - the other figure of the 1890's: an aesthete, "dandy", tried for his homosexuality in a context of a notorious show trial; his life destroyed.
These two figures resonate with particular pathos and cruelty in the context of a major public debate on homosexuality, the family and sexuality in 1994.
(note: Gay Pride and Prejudice has two parts, left side and right side. Each is 62:00 long.)

A Choice for Irish Women

© 1992 Intervention Video Inc. (45 min., DVD)

A Choice for Irish Women exposes the abortion issue in Ireland.
Through interviews with leading Irish feminists and women throughout Ireland, the tape recounts the impact on Irish women's lives of the 1983 Pro-life Amendment to the Irish constitution. In February 1992, world attention was focused on Ireland, when a High Court judge in Dublin ruled that a pregnant 14 year old girl, a victim of rape, could not escape Ireland's ban on abortion by going to Britain.
Like the Chantal Daigle case in Canada in 1989, this girl's plight put a human face on the experience of countless Irish women. Some 10 Irish women a day travel to Britain and Wales for an abortion.

Working for Piece Work Wages

© 1988 Intervention Video Inc. (35 min., DVD)

Working For Piece Work Wages follows the work of the Mobile Health Unit in Toronto and exposes the conditions of work in the industry.

Mini Skools Pays Mini Wages

© 1986 Intervention Video Inc. (23 min., DVD)

Mini Skools Pays Mini Wages traces the eight month strike in 1983 by daycare workers at Mini Skools in Mississauga against Kindercare Learning Centers, a multi-national daycare company. Focussing on the need for strong rank and file activity as the only means of winning strikes, when employers are on the offensive, Mini Skools Pays Mini Wages takes a critical look at the tactics of the union bureaucracy and examines the reasons for the strike's defeat.

Struggle For Choice

Five half hour videotapes examine the 17 year period of the abortion rights movement from the liberalization of the abortion law in 1969 until today (1987). The tapes present the abortion rights issue in an overall political context and cover:

1. The history of the movement since 1969,
2. access to abortion and family planning across Canada,
3. the history of the movement in Quebec,
4. the impact of the economic recession, and
5. Dr. Morgentaler's challenge to the abortion law from 1983-1987.

Struggle For Choice - Part 1: Abortion Caravan

© 1986 Intervention Video Inc. (31 min., DVD)

Part One, Abortion Caravan - the Federal law changes in 1969, to allow for the legal dissemination of birth control information and the legalization of abortion if performed in an accredited hospital and approved by a therapeutic abortion committee of three doctors (it was not removed from the Criminal Code, making abortion illegal if performed in free-standing clinics or without the approval of a committee.) Women respond to the limitations of the new law with demonstrations. Participants in Abortion Caravan "declare war on the Government of Canada" and shut down Parliament for the first time in Canada's history.

Struggle For Choice - Part 2: Access

© 1986 Intervention Video Inc. (34 min., DVD)

Part 2, Access - access to medically safe abortions is in crisis. Interviews with organizations and individuals across the country emphasize the crisis in access and the strategies being used by anti-choice groups to shut down all existing services.
The tape examines the take over of hospital therapeutic abortion committees by anti-abortion groups in Western Canada and the Maritimes.

Struggle For Choice - Part 3 / La lutte pour le libre choix - troisieme partie: Québec (1971-1980)

© 1986 Intervention Video Inc. (37 min., DVD)

Part 3, Québec - the abortion rights struggle in Quebec. Between 1973 and 1984 the CNALG (Coordination Nationale pour l'avortement libre et gratuit) mounts a massive working class campaign to fight for "free abortion on demand." This tape exposes the political climate in Quebec and the nature of the abortion rights movement which achieved these gains.

Cette troisième partie d'une série de cinq, relate spécifiquement la lutte pour l'avortement des années 1971 à 1980 au Québec.
Inhérent au contexte politique, des années '70, c'est principalement autour des centre de santé pour femmes et autour des mouvements syndicaux que s'est articulée la lutte pour l'avortement libre au Québec. On note, parmi les faits marquants, la cause Morgentaler et les équivoques "cliniques Lazure."

Struggle For Choice - Part 4: Restraint / Repression

© 1986 Intervention Video Inc. (31 min., DVD)

Part 4, Restraint/Repression - the impact of the economic recession of the 1980's. Focussing on Operation Solidarity in British Columbia and the Common Front Unions in Québec, Part 4 examines the impact of layoffs and cutbacks in social and health care service.
Restraint/Repression examines the deepening economic recession and its impact on women's struggle for reproduction freedom. Several factors of the recession come to bear both on women's access to services as well as on the abortion rights struggle itself.

Struggle For Choice - Part 5: The Legal Battle

© 1986 Intervention Video Inc. (30 min., DVD)

Part 5, The Legal Battle - in 1983 Dr. Morgentaler opens two illegal clinics in Toronto and Winnipeg. Part 5 examines the attempt by the Pro-Choice movement today to use the courts to fight for abortion rights.

Let Poland Be Poland

© 1982 Intervention Video Inc. (83 min., DVD)

On December 13, 1981, General Jaruzelski imposed martial law in Poland in response to the demands of the free trade union Solidarnosc. This video examines Cold War Politics and the tactics of governments east and west in the face of labour unrest at the time of the Polish Crisis.

Sacrificial Burnings

© 1980 Intervention Video Inc. (38 min., DVD)

A feminist tape about love, power and illusion. Quotations from a medieval manual for inquisitors referring to the wickedness of women and the evil of witches are interwoven with two recent witch tales. One of a woman who escapes an oppressive upbringing only to escape into an equally destructive marriage. The other, the story of the Hollywood actress Frances Farmer who was driven to alcoholism and incarceration in a mental hospital.

The Miniature Theater - Notes From an Unknown Source (A Science Fiction)

© 1979 Intervention Video Inc. (28 min., DVD)

A story, presented as a continuously rolling character-generated script over image, with simultaneous narration. The tape addresses itself to the nature of bureaucracy and its absurd technocratic extensions.