Stimulantia

A collection of vignettes highlighting different aspects of the life, work, and character of the acclaimed Canadian classical pianist.

Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.

A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.

Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.

A successful "house tuner" in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people's homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can't solve.

The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.

Inspired by Chris Marker's iconic 1962 featurette La Jetée; the year is 2073—a not-so-distant dystopian future—and the setting is New San Francisco, the scorched-earth tech-dominant police state where democracy and personal freedom have been well and truly obliterated.

A reporter, fired after refusing to give names to a 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, takes a part-time job as companion to an old lady. While working she overhears a noisy argument in the neighboring house, being conducted largely in German and involving her HUAC prosecutor. She begins to investigate, enlisting the help of the FBI Agent initially detailed to surveil her.

A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.