This documentary short is a cinematic recording of Tales from a Prairie Drifter, a stage comedy about the North-West Resistance during the opening of the Canadian West. Highlighting the roles of Louis Riel, the Resistance leader, prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald and General Middleton, who was sent to quell the uprising, the play defines the First nations and Métis cause more succinctly than many history books. Here, the play is performed by the Regina Globe Theatre before and Indigineous audience of First Nations and Métis, whose reactions are recorded.
This documentary short is a cinematic recording of Tales from a Prairie Drifter, a stage comedy about the North-West Resistance during the opening of the Canadian West. Highlighting the roles of Louis Riel, the Resistance leader, prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald and General Middleton, who was sent to quell the uprising, the play defines the First nations and Métis cause more succinctly than many history books. Here, the play is performed by the Regina Globe Theatre before and Indigineous audience of First Nations and Métis, whose reactions are recorded.
1974-01-01
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Flora Bear’s youngest granddaughter searches for truth and answers about her Indigenous grandmother’s life.
In less than 150 years, 97.3% of British Columbia's old growth forests have been logged. These ancient trees and their ecosystems have been lost forever. Fairy Creek (Ada'itsx), one of BC's last untouched old growth watersheds, lies on Southern Vancouver Island on the unceded territories of the Pacheedaht, Ditidaht and the Huu-ay-aht Nations. Despite Premier John Horgan's 2020 election promise to protect the remaining 2.7% of old growth forest, logging of Fairy Creek continues unabated. In August 2020, forest and land defenders began setting up blockades to prevent the destruction of this beautiful and fragile ecosystem. One year later, after mass civil action, over 500 arrests and intense public pressure, the conflict continues. This comprehensive and compelling documentary film sheds light on the issues around the logging and blockades, through conversations with Indigenous Elders, politicians, police, lawyers, front line activists, and many others.
For more than 100 years, thousands of Indigenous children died while in Canada’s residential school system. Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones survived, but he, like many others, experienced years of beatings and sexual abuse. The scandal has finally brought the Indigenous rights struggle into focus, none more so than at Fairy Creek, an area of forest on First Nations land that protesters are desperately trying to prevent from falling into the hands of logging companies.
"A short documentary amplifying what I witnessed this past long weekend. I hope this film helps spread the word about the importance of the Fairy Creek Watershed. Ancient old growth trees, a watershed connecting waterways and endangered species are all on the chopping block at the Fairy Creek Blockade as RCMP have moved in to arrest peaceful protestors so Teal-Jones can log the watershed."
A film initially was released alongside an injunction granted from the BC court to Teal Jones, enabling them to forcibly remove forest protectors who have been sacrificing their worlds at home to stand and defend some of the last of the 2.7% remaining old-growth on Vancouver Island. In collaboration with filmmaker, Ian MacKenzie, the short-film depicts how much we truly depend on these Ancient Forests for our survival as well.
The ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest are home to giant trees and many secrets, which science is just beginning to understand. But these forests are at risk of disappearing. In British Columbia on First Nation territory, a small band of forest defenders are risking life and liberty to protect some of the last remaining ancient forests.
The film follows Postcommodity, an interdisciplinary arts collective comprised of Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martinez and Kade L. Twist, who put land art in a tribal context. The group bring together a community to construct the Repellent Fence, a two-mile long ephemeral monument “stitching” together the US and Mexico.
Carrie Davis was part of the child removal system near the end of the Sixties Scoop. With guidance from her uncle Emmett Sack and the community, Carrie reconnects to their land, language, and culture.
Standsinwater Sutherland is 2Spirit Cree living in Northern Ontario. Holding her eagle feather, she sits and tells her story: her quest to identity, how teachings learned along the way took her from the concrete jungle of Toronto back to her reservation and her commitment to help her community regain their culture and traditional ways.
The duo made up of musician and actress Julia de Castro and double bass player Miguel Rodrigáñez thus premieres their latest show, Exhalación: vida y muerte de De La Puríssima. With it, they intend to put an end to the ten-year revolution of EL CUPLÉ this scenic musical genre, which the singular tandem has merged with jazz, cumbia and electronics on stages around the world. Show nominated for the Premios Valle Inclán. As the duo explains, De La Puríssima was born in 2009 “as a transit project, in which music was the most direct and ritualistic medium from which to raise core issues such as sex, bullfighting, folklore or religion”. Now, a decade later, it is time to remove the peineta and celebrate the end of a stage in which the provocative lyrics by Julia de Castro have traveled through numerous audiences to bring up to date a genre that was in the forgetfulness of national folklore, the cuplé.
RESIST; The Unist'oten's Call to the Land is a short documentary that was filmed in the summer of 2013 on unceded Wet'suwet'en territory, 1000 km north of Vancouver in northern BC (western Canada) over the duration of the fourth annual Environmental Action Camp, hosted by the Unist’ot’en (C'ihlts'ehkhyu/Big Frog) Clan. The focus of the film is on the Camp as a year-round resistance to exploitative industry, and what it represents in relation to indigenous sovereignty and the environmental, legal, and social issues surrounding pipeline projects in British Columbia. The film documents one of the most important resistance camps in North America at the time.
"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.
Combining archival photos with new and found footage, this short film presents a personal, impressionistic rendering of what it's like growing up Mi'kmaq in Newfoundland, while living in a culture of denial. Vistas is a series of 13 short films on nationhood from 13 Indigenous filmmakers from Halifax to Vancouver. It was a collaborative project between the NFB and APTN to bring Indigenous perspectives and stories to an international audience.
In Caribou in the Archive, rustic VHS home video of a Cree woman hunting caribou in the 1990s is combined with NFB archival film footage of northern Manitoba from the 1950s. In this experimental film, the difference between homemade video and official historical record is considered. Northern Indigenous women hunting is at the heart of this personal found footage film in which the filmmaker describes the enigmatic events that led to saving an important piece of family history from being lost forever.
A day in the life of 91.1, Nuxalk Radio, a radio station built to help keep the Nuxalk language alive while broadcasting the laws of the lands and waters.
Xapiri is a Yanomami term that characterizes the shamans, male spirits (xapiri thëpë) and also auxiliary spirits (xapiri pë). Xapiri is an experimental film about Yanomami shamanism that was filmed during a meeting of 37 shamans at the Watoriki Reserve, Roraima, in March of 2011. The film was designed to take into account two different notions of image: those of the Yanomami and ours. Therefore, it does not set out to explain shamanism, its methods or procedures, but to allow different cultures to visualize and feel the way in which the shamans “embody” the spirits, their bodies and voices.
The Blackfoot bareback horse-racing tradition returns in the astonishingly dangerous Indian Relay. Siksika horseman Allison Red Crow struggles with secondhand horses and a new jockey on his way to challenging the best riders in the Blackfoot Confederacy.
A documentary essay on coming of age and the power of the unconscious. In the same vein as Sweatlodge Song, this is a message of courage and hope.
An intimate and thrilling portrait of a young Siksika woman and the deep bonds between her father and family in the golden plains of Blackfoot Territory as she prepares for one of the most dangerous horse races in the world… bareback.