2006-06-06
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Through concerts and interviews, folk-progressive group Harmonium takes Quebec culture to California. This documentary full of colour and sound, filmed in California in 1978, recounts the ups and downs of the journey of the Quebec musical group Harmonium, who came to feel the pulse of Americans and see if culture, their culture, can succeed in crossing borders.
This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.
Alanis Obomsawin, a North American Indian who earns her living by singing and making films, is the mother of an adopted child. She talks about her life, her people, and her responsibilities as a single parent. Her observations shake some of our cultural assumptions.
Some people think John Muir was a hero. Others: not so much. The Adventure Brothers hike the famous John Muir Trail (a.k.a. Nüümü Poyo) to investigate the conservationist's controversial legacy.
Follows the young people of Selma, Alabama's RATCo (Random Acts of Theatre Company) as they journey to New York City to share their story of hope, resilience, and overcoming.
Walt Disney said “We have created characters and animated them in the dimension of depth, revealing through them to our perturbed world that the things we have in common far outnumber and outweigh those that divide us.” Outside of Walt himself there are few people who have brought together and united more animators in the history of the genre than Craig "Spike" Decker and Mike Gribble, known to all as Spike & Mike. They created an animation festival that helped launch the careers of John Lasseter, Peter Lord, Will Vinton, Bill Plympton and Mike Judge to name just a few. Their Spike & Mike festival had an enormous impact on animation that was felt the world over. The festival was known as much for the breakthrough animation it presented as the outrageous antics of the founders.
With moving stories from a range of characters from her Kahnawake Reserve, Mohawk filmmaker, Tracey Deer, reveals the divisive legacy of more than a hundred years of discriminatory and sexist government policy to expose the lingering "blood quantum" ideals, snobby attitudes and outright racism that threaten to destroy the fabric of her community.
For millennia, Native Americans successfully stewarded and shaped their landscapes, but centuries of colonization have disrupted their ability to maintain their traditional land management practices. From deserts, coastlines, forests, mountains, and prairies, Native communities across the US are restoring their ancient relationships with the land. As the climate crisis escalates these time-tested practices of North America's original inhabitants are becoming increasingly essential in a rapidly changing world.
The “Prophecy of the 7th Fire” says a “black snake” will bring destruction to the earth. For Winona LaDuke, the “black snake” is oil trains and pipelines. When she learns that Canadian-owned Enbridge plans to route a new pipeline through her tribe’s 1855 Treaty land, she and her community spring into action to save the sacred wild rice lakes and preserve their traditional indigenous way of life. Launching an annual spiritual horse ride along the proposed pipeline route, speaking at community meetings and regulatory hearings. Winona testifies that the pipeline route follows one of historical and present-day trauma. The tribe participates in the pipeline permitting process, asserting their treaty rights to protect their natural resources. LaDuke joins with her tribe and others to demand that the pipelines’ impact on tribal people’s resources be considered in the permitting process.
"Before I left today, I almost forgot to answer a lot of e-mails."
This documentary follows Dawn Murphy, or “Princess Delta Dawn”, who rose to fame in the 1980s and early 1990s and became the first Indigenous woman wrestler and the first Canadian woman wrestler to compete in Japan.
Siméon Malec, host on Pakueshikan FM radio, receives Marie-Soleil Bellefleur on the air to discuss new regulations concerning salmon nets. To their great dismay, the duo is constantly interrupted by increasingly worrying calls... It seems that a lion has been seen in the community!
Elliot Page brings attention to the injustices and injuries caused by environmental racism in his home province, in this urgent documentary on Indigenous and African Nova Scotian women fighting to protect their communities, their land, and their futures.
In the form of a poetic love letter to its nation, this short film reveals a strong community and the anchoring of the new generation in this rich culture.
About the poet C.A.Conrad, an eccentric Elvis worshiping poet and tarot card reader, who confronts his violent past and the suspicious death of his boyfriend, Earth. The film attempts to unravel the mystery of Earth's death, while Conrad wrestles with his inner demons through a series of unconventional rituals and a tour of the deep South.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
The conflict over forestry operations on Lyell Island in 1985 was a major milestone in the history of the re-emergence of the Haida Nation. It was a turning point for the Haida and management of their natural resources.
Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.
Three Alaska Native women work to save their endangered language, Kodiak Alutiiq, and ensure the future of their culture while confronting their personal demons. With just 41 fluent Native speakers remaining, mostly Elders, some estimate their language could die out within ten years. The small community travels to a remote Island, where a language immersion experiment unfolds with the remaining fluent Elders. Young camper Sadie, an at-risk 13 year old learner and budding Alutiiq dancer, is inspired and gains strength through her work with the teachers. Yet PTSD and politics loom large as the elders, teachers, and students try to continue the difficult task of language revitalization over the next five years.