Filmmaker and educator Janine Windolph ventures from Saskatchewan to Quebec with her two teens and younger sister, tracing their familial origins to the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi. Against the scenic backdrop of these Traditional Lands, Elders offer newfound interdependence and hands-on learning, transforming this humble visit into a sensory-filled expression of reclamation and resilience. Our Maternal Home lovingly establishes a heart-centred form of resistance to confront and heal from the generational impacts of cultural disconnection, making space for what comes next.
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A documentary on the war between the Guatemalan military and the Mayan population, with first hand accounts by Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.
"Sisters Rising" is the story of six Native American women fighting to restore personal and tribal sovereignty in the face of ongoing colonial violence against indigenous women in the United States. Dawn was in the Army, now she’s a tribal cop in the midst of the North Dakota oil boom that threatens to pull the last threads of her Native culture apart. Patty teaches indigenous women’s self-defense across the Great Plains of her people. Sarah is an attorney and scholar fighting to overturn restrictions on tribal sovereignty and increase legislative protections for Native women. Loreline and Lisa are grassroots advocates working outside of the system to support survivors of violence and influence legislative change. Chalsey is writing the first anti-sex trafficking code to be introduced to a reservation’s tribal court.
With a hybrid style blending political essay and road movie, this documentary by Santiago Bertolino takes us into the heart of the Amazonian reality. Following Marie-Josée Béliveau, an ecologist and ethnogeographer, they journey together along the 4000 km from the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil to one of its sources in Ecuador where they meet with the guardians of the forest. As a result, we witness powerful and spontaneous testimonies from local communities who are doing everything to preserve what remains of their lands, which are disappearing due to the inexorable advance of Western modernity.
What does blood have to do with identity? Kendra Mylnechuk, an adult Native adoptee, born in 1980 at the cusp of the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act, is on a journey to reconnect with her birth family and discover her Lummi heritage.
The Great Lakes and connecting waterways have remained the center of traditional and contemporary economies for centuries. Meet the Ojibwe and a tribe that was relocated to this region—the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin who care for these lands. Natural resources are the Tribes’ main economy, including the famous Red Lake walleye and wild rice lakes.
All across Alaska, Native cultures have depended on the abundant natural resources found there to support their families, cultures and way of life. Now these resources are growing scarce, and the people who have relied on them for centuries have to find new ways to adapt.
Oklahoma is home to thirty-nine federally recognized tribes. Nowhere in North America will you find such diversity among Native Peoples, and nowhere will you find a more tragic history. Host Moses Brings Plenty (Oglala Lakota) guides this episode of Growing Native on a journey through Oklahoma’s past and present.
A short documentary about the Ojibwe Native Americans of Northern Minnesota and the wild rice (Manoomin) they consider a sacred gift from the Creator. The film tells the Creation and Migration stories that are central to the tribe's oral history and belief system while showing the traditional process of hand-harvesting and parching the wild rice. Biotech companies are currently researching ways to genetically modify the rice and the community is fighting to keep it wild.
It portrays a pioneering and risky work carried out in a small Xinane base, by FUNAI, near Parallel 10º South, west of Acre, on the border with Peru. In simple installations, in the middle of the jungle, the sertanista José Carlos Meirelles carries out the difficult mission of protecting the isolated Indians of the region, with the help of anthropologist Terri Aquino. With few resources, specialists perform their tasks tirelessly. In addition to carrying out a permanent negotiation with the riverside populations in the area, they also deal with the confrontation with traffickers and squatters who try to invade it.
The hunters are the Innu people and the bombers are the air forces of several NATO countries, which conduct low-level flights over the Innu's hunting terrain. The impact of the jets is hotly debated by peace groups, Indigenous people, environmentalists and the military. But what is often overlooked are the many complex changes underway in Innu society, as social and technological changes confront a traditional hunting culture.
Red Fever is a witty and entertaining feature documentary about the profound -- yet hidden -- Indigenous influence on Western culture and identity. The film follows Cree co-director Neil Diamond as he asks, “Why do they love us so much?!” and sets out on a journey to find out why the world is so fascinated with the stereotypical imagery of Native people that is all over pop culture. Why have Indigenous cultures been revered, romanticized, and appropriated for so long, and to this day? Red Fever uncovers the surprising truths behind the imagery -- so buried in history that even most Native people don't know about them.
Lost in the Bewilderness is a feature-length documentary about the filmmaker’s cousin Lucas, kidnapped at age five from his native Greece, and found on the eve of his 16th birthday in the US. This story of international parental abduction, filmed for over twenty years, chronicles Lucas’s journey of growth and self-discovery, and culminates with Lucas becoming a father himself. Lost in the Bewilderness is not only a detective story but also a lyrical meditation on childhood, lost and found, and an exploration of how the themes of ancient Greek myth and tragedy, with the family at their center, are still very much alive in the modern world.
The Cherokee language is deeply tied to Cherokee identity; yet generations of assimilation efforts by the U.S. government and anti-Indigenous stigmas have forced the Tri-Council of Cherokee tribes to declare a State of Emergency for the language in 2019. While there are 430,000 Cherokee citizens in the three federally recognized tribes, fewer than an estimated 2,000 fluent speakers remain—the majority of whom are elderly. The covid pandemic has unfortunately hastened the course. Language activists, artists, and the youth must now lead the charge of urgent radical revitalization efforts to help save the language from the brink of extinction.
This documentary chronicles the story of Darrell Night, an Indigenous man who was dumped by two police officers in a barren field on the outskirts of Saskatoon in January 2000, during -20° C temperatures. He survived, but he was stunned to hear that the frozen body of another Indigenous man was discovered in the same area.
Documentary about "The Coolbaroo Club", which was the only Aboriginal-run dance club in a city which practiced unofficial apartheid. During its lifetime, the Club attracted Black musicians and celebrities from all over Australia and occasionally from overseas. Although best-remembered for the hugely popular Coolbaroo dances attended by hundreds of Aborigines and their white supporters, the "Coolbaroo League", founded by Club members, ran a newspaper and became an effective political organization, speaking out on issues of the day affecting Aboriginal people.
The personal stories lived by the Uncle, the Father and the Son, respectively, form a tragic experience that is drawn along a line in time. This line is comparable to a crease in the pages of the family album, but also to a crack in the walls of the paternal house. It resembles the open wound created when drilling into a mountain, but also a scar in the collective imaginary of a society, where the idea of salvation finds its tragic destiny in the political struggle. What is at the end of that line? Will old war songs be enough to circumvent that destiny?
A vision from Limbo, where the canoeist of the eternal lake floats in his boat, between sleep and wakefulness. When he sleeps, he dreams of the everyday of a parallel time. when he wakes up, the same song haunts him again and again. his boat, “ara” (time, in guarani) travels through time like a shooting star.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.