This short documentary examines an innovative educational program developed by John and Gerti Murdoch to teach Cree children their language via Cree folklore, photographs, artifacts, and books that were written and printed in the community. Made as part of the NFB’s groundbreaking Challenge for Change series, Cree Way shows that local control of the education curriculum has a place in Indigenous communities.
Narrator
This short documentary examines an innovative educational program developed by John and Gerti Murdoch to teach Cree children their language via Cree folklore, photographs, artifacts, and books that were written and printed in the community. Made as part of the NFB’s groundbreaking Challenge for Change series, Cree Way shows that local control of the education curriculum has a place in Indigenous communities.
1977-01-01
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Cuba, 1961: 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. 100,000 of the teachers were under 18 years old. Over half were women. MAESTRA explores this story through the personal testimonies of the young women who went out to teach literacy in rural communities across the island - and found themselves deeply transformed in the process.
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.
These children live in the four corners of the earth, but share the same thirst for learning. They understand that only education will allow them a better future and that is why, every day, they must set out on the long and perilous journey that will lead them to knowledge. Jackson and his younger sister from Kenya walk 15 kilometres each way through a savannah populated by wild animals; Carlito rides more than 18 kilometres twice a day with his younger sister, across the plains of Argentina; Zahira lives in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains who has an exhausting 22 kilometres walk along punishing mountain paths before she reaches her boarding school; Samuel from India sits in a clumsy DIY wheelchair and the 4 kilometres journey is an ordeal each day, as his two younger brothers have to push him all the way to school…
A film that captures the portraits and stories of extraordinary women around the world who are coming together to heal the injustices against the earth, weaves together poetry, music, art, and stunning scenery to create a hopeful and collective story that inspires us to work for the earth. The list of impassioned, indefatigable female environmental activists featured in this film includes Winona LaDuke, a Native American who has championed the use of solar and wind power on reservations; Theo Colborn, head of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, who fights against toxic chemicals in our water supplies; Beverly Grant, who’s created a vibrant farmer’s market in a black neighborhood of Denver, Colo.; Dana Miller, who spearheads an “urban agriculture movement” in the same city; and Vandana Shiva, who champions organic farming in India.
Short, evocative documentary on the education of blind and partially sighted children.
The women of the first Garífuna community in Honduras work hard for the future of their daughters. Surrounded by a dazzling landscape, they celebrate their identity and the importance of maternal figures.
A child discovers a timeless building while searching for her father, meeting vibrant creatives protecting their studios from an impending threat.
Rember Yahuarcani is an indigenous artist from the Uitoto Nation who lives in Lima, Peru. From his clan, the White Heron, only two families remain in Peru. Rember's paintings are inspired by the stories his grandmother Martha told him before she died. However, he has never dived into the darkest part of his nation’s history: the indigenous massacre during the rubber boom. Martha is a survivor of the horror and she speaks to Rember in dreams guiding him in a spiritual journey back to the jungle. He first visits his parents, who are also artists, in the Peruvian jungle. And finally, he sails to La Chorrera, in Colombia, where he confronts the past and meets other members of his clan.
This short documentary depicts the formation in 1959 of the first successful co-operative in an Inuit community in Northern Québec. The film describes how, with other Inuit of the George River community, the Annanacks formed a joint venture that included a sawmill, a fish-freezing plant and a small boat-building industry.
The story of a town at the mercy of a landscape in transformation; standing on the brink of an encroaching reality, one in which the age-old fears of the inhabitants are being reproduced. A hamlet has survived, perched in a remote location where its children can grow up and the elderly can die and stay there.
This documentary follows a Cree woman as she takes on the Indian Relay race season, as well as the Canadian authorities in her quest to give Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women a voice.
A year in the life of one of America's most innovative classrooms where students design & build to transform their hometown community. The film follows Emily Pilloton and Matt Miller as they teach the fundamentals of design, architecture and construction to a class of high school juniors in rural North Carolina.
Atikamekw elder Cézar Néwashish continues to recount the history of the community of Manawan that first began in The History of Manawan: Part One. As Christianity and European customs take deeper root in the community – abetted by residential schools and aggressive assimilationist government policies – seemingly irreversible changes to significant customs begin to unfold. Despite these struggles, the people carry on. This short is part of the Manawan series directed by Alanis Obomsawin.
They were forced to assimilate into white society: children ripped away from their families, depriving them of their culture and erasing their identities. Can reconciliation help heal the scars from childhoods lost? "Dawnland" is the untold story of Indigenous child removal in the US through the nation's first-ever government-endorsed truth and reconciliation commission, which investigated the devastating impact of Maine’s child welfare practices on the Wabanaki people.
In 1999, 11-year-old Nisha Platzer lost her older brother, Josh, to suicide. Twenty years later, her search for a specialized medical treatment leads her to the door of someone who was once exceptionally close to Josh. And so it is that she finally has the chance to truly know her brother through his chosen family. Captured over five years in which synchronicities continually manifested, Platzer’s documentation of these encounters gently asserts that both grieving and healing are meant to be communal experiences.
“We left our language and started speaking others’. The girls have got married and have left for the villages. Boys are getting married in villages. It should be taught to children”. — Gyani Maiya Sen-Kusunda The Gi Mihaq (also known as Kusunda) was a semi-nomadic hunter and gatherer community that settled in villages around the mid-western Nepalese district of Dang. They have long lost their native language Mihaq (Kusunda), to acculturation and other barriers to active use. The community also lost their 83-year-old elder Gyani Maiya Sen-Kusunda in 2020, the most and the only known fluent Kusunda speaker then. Filmed in Kulmor in the Dang District in 2018, this openly-licensed documentary is a memoir of Sen-Kusunda in her own words and a biography of her people who were forced to leave their language and cultural identity. Kusunda is being revived by Kamala Sen Khatri, Sen-Kusunda’s younger sister, and Uday Raj Aaley, a local researcher who is the key interviewer for this film.
Tractor Ted takes us to see some amazing diggers and dumpers at work. The huge excavators are at work in the quarry, where we see them blasting rock and then down at the river clearing banks. Dave is working on his digger showing us different jobs he can use it for and the children have a tricky job trying to catch the lambs.
This Cheeky Scientist Documentary chronicles origins of Cheeky Scientist and includes in depth interviews with PhDs from different backgrounds who overcame extreme personal challenges to get hired in industry. This feature also includes behind the scenes footage of the Cheeky Scientist Summit and is narrated by Isaiah Hankel, Ph.D.
The Amazon plays a vital part in regulating the planet's temperature. Yet, last year, forest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon soared by 85 per cent. Illegal logging and slash-and-burn agriculture are decimating the land. With huge profits to be made, the Amazon is a dangerous place to ask questions. Despite the threat, the Amazonian tribes want the world to hear their message.