Women in the Shadows(1991)

The Crying Fields(en)

A deep dive into the history of the Canadian Government and the Department of National Defence leasing First Nations reserves as practice bombing ranges during World War I and World War II. This documentary follows the Enoch Cree Nation's process of developing it's land claim against the Canadian Government following the discovery of active landmines in the heart of the nation's cultural lands and golf course in 2014, almost 70 years later.

The Klondike Gold Rush(en)

Renowned as the richest gold strike in North American mining history, the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1899) set off a stampede of over 100,000 people on a colossal journey from Alaska to the gold fields of Canada's Yukon Territory. Filled with the frontier spirit, prospectors came and gave rise to what was one of the largest cities in Canada at that time - Dawson City. The boomtown, which became known as "the Paris of the North", earned the reputation as a place where lives could be revolutionized. Brought to life with excerpts from the celebrated book The Klondike Stampede - published in 1900 by Harper's Weekly correspondent Tappan Adney - and featuring interviews with award-winning author Charlotte Gray, and historians Terrence Cole and Michael Gates, The Klondike Gold Rush is an incredible story of determination, luck, fortune, and loss. In the end, it isn't all about the gold, but rather the journey to the Klondike itself.

On and On and On(en)

Albert Ward was a highly regarded Mi'kmaq Elder from Eel Ground First Nation and a very dear friend and teacher to my family. This recording was the last time we spoke to him, and the first time I had met him since infancy.

Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the 70's Generation(en)

Canadian director Catherine Annau's debut work is a documentary about the legacy of Pierre Trudeau, the long-running Prime Minister of Canada, who governed during the 1970s. The film focuses particularly on Trudeau's goal of creating a thoroughly bilingual nation. Annau interviews eight people in their mid-30s on both sides of the linguistic divide. One tells of her life growing up in a community of hard-core Quebec separatists, while another, a yuppie from Toronto, recalls believing as a child that people in Montreal got drunk and had sex all day long. Annau has all of the interviewees discuss how Trudeau's policies affected their lives and their perceptions of the other side, in this issue that strikes to the heart of Canada's national identity.

Our Dear Sisters(en)

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.

Interwoven(fr)

Five female artisans from the Innu, Franco-Quebecois, and Zapotec peoples discuss their work. Their techniques, objects, and textile traditions give rise to stories that overlap. Their clothing reflects on identity and otherness.

Trick or Treaty?(en)

Legendary Canadian documentarian Alanis Obomsawin digs into the tangled history of Treaty 9 — the infamous 1905 agreement wherein First Nations communities relinquished sovereignty over their traditional territories — to reveal the deceptions and distortions which the document has been subjected to by successive governments seeking to deprive Canada’s First Peoples of their lands.

Mother Earth’s Inner Organs(en)

The first mountains that the Amsterdam-based Colombian artist and filmmaker Ana Bravo Pérez saw in the Netherlands were black. In this experimental work, she follows the stench of the coal in the port of Amsterdam back to its origin: an open wound in northern Colombia. The mine is located in the territory of the Wayuu and has a huge impact on the indigenous people.

The Secret Order(fr)

Phil Comeau shines a spotlight on the Ordre de Jacques-Cartier, a powerful secret society that operated from 1926 to 1965, infiltrating every sector of Canadian society and forging the fate of French-language communities. Through never-before-heard testimony from former members of the Order, along with historically accurate dramatic reconstructions, this film paints a gripping portrait of the social and political struggles of Canadian francophone-minority communities.

The Invention of the Other(pt)

In 2019, the Brazilian government coordinates the largest and riskiest expedition of the last decades into the Amazon rainforest to search for a group of isolated indigenous people in vulnerability and promote their first contact with non-indigenous. Bruno Pereira, who would later be murdered in the same region and turned into an international symbol in favor of the indigenous and the forest, leads the expedition.

Anti-Objects, or Space Without Path or Boundary(en)

The title of this video, taken from the texts of the architect Kengo Kuma, suggests a way of looking at everything as “interconnected and intertwined” - such as the historical and the present and the tool and the artifact. Images and representations of two structures in the Portland Metropolitan Area that have direct and complicated connections to the Chinookan people who inhabit(ed) the land are woven with audio tapes of one of the last speakers of chinuk wawa, the Chinookan creole. These localities of matter resist their reduction into objects, and call anew for space and time given to wandering as a deliberate act, and the empowerment of shared utility.

These were the reasons(en)

This film takes us into the harsh realm of BC's early coal mines, canneries, and lumber camps; where primitve conditions and speed-ups often cost lives. Then, the film moves through the unemployed' struggles of the '30s, post WWII equity campaigns, and into more recent public sector strikes over union rights.

Declutter(en)

One Saturday morning, filmmaker Madison Thomas has a revelation: she’s just like her mother. As she thinks about a friend going through tough times, she feels the sudden urge to clean. Through the scrubbing and wiping and rinsing, Madison's thoughts drift to her mother — and her obsessive need to tidy. Madison’s mother survived a traumatic childhood: her own mother never reconciled what she went through at residential school. Cleaning offers moments of control that she didn’t have as a child. She’s fought hard, against all odds, to become a strong woman. They say trauma is in the genes, that it’s passed from one generation to the next. But strength is inherited too. Through rituals as simple as spending time together and smudging, Madison and her mother are beginning to mend the cycle of pain in their family. Declutter is an intimate look into a private moment between mother and daughter and the strength that carries them both.

Akateko. La aparición de san Miguel Arcángel(es)

Chinanteco. Jujmi La niña del Río(es)

Chocholteco. La niña de la lanilla(es)

Keep Talking(en)

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.

Tz'üntz'ü(es)

Beyond Kicks(en)

In the early 1970s, a group of young volunteers, the Free Youth Clinic of Winnipeg, operated a "crisis bus" to rescue young people experiencing bad drug trips, usually from LSD.

Highway to the Arctic(de)

Every winter for decades, the Northwest Territories, in the Canadian Far North, changes its face. While the landscape is covered with snow and lakes of a thick layer of ice, blocking land transport, ice roads are converted to frozen expanses as far as the eye can see.