‘Beginnings’ is a 40 minute short film about domestic abuse in a newcomer’s context. It is about a recently settled immigrant family facing mounting pressures of life here. The cold, the crappy jobs, the social isolation. The constant reliance on your family and your family alone, which leads to tension. This is a film about power, and the tension between patriarchal culture and equality. This film was commissioned by the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers and developed by a group of culturally-diverse members of the newcomer community. They worked with a team of filmmakers to create a movie about domestic abuse that could educate newcomers, service providers, and the general public in an engaging, non-patronizing way. We settled on a mix of fiction and documentary.