Pakatakan (route des portages)(1990)

The Living Stone(en)

The Living Stone is a 1958 Canadian short documentary film directed by John Feeney about Inuit art. It shows the inspiration behind Inuit sculpture. The Inuit approach to the work is to release the image the artist sees imprisoned in the rough stone. The film centres on an old legend about the carving of the image of a sea spirit to bring food to a hungry camp. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

The Blueberry Blues(fr)

Summer unveils a new blueberry season in northern Canada. The fields are covered in blue and workers from all over scramble before the frost puts an end to the harvest. And yet this time of year is much more than just picking: it's a time of music and connection.

We Will Speak(en)

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.

Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation(en)

This hour-long documentary is a provocative look at a historical event of which few Americans are aware. In mid-January, 1893, armed troops from the U.S.S Boston landed at Honolulu in support of a treasonous coup d’état against the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen Lili‘uokalani. The event was described by U.S. President Grover Cleveland as an "act of war."

To Wake Up the Nakota Language(en)

“When you don’t know your language or your culture, you don’t know who you are,” says 69-year-old Armand McArthur, one of the last fluent Nakota speakers in Pheasant Rump First Nation, Treaty 4 territory, in southern Saskatchewan. Through the wisdom of his words, Armand is committed to revitalizing his language and culture for his community and future generations.

Paralelo 10(pt)

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.

Growing Native Great Lakes: Turtle Island(en)

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.

Growing Native Alaska: People of the North(en)

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.

Growing Native Northwest: Coast Salish(en)

From totem poles to language revitalization and traditional agriculture, host Chris Eyre (Cheyenne Arapaho) discovers the resilience of the Coast Salish Tribes of the Pacific Northwest. Travel down historic waterways as the tribe revisits their ancient connection to the water with an annual canoe journey.

The Sacred Food(en)

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.

Where the Land Ends(fr)

A documentary that explores what it means to be a young person in Quebec after the dissolution of the Quebec sovereignty movement.

Doués et oubliés : maman, quand est-ce que j'apprends?(fr)

The Family of the Forest(fr)

In the heart of the Boreal forest lives a family renowned as much for their gourmet forest pickings as for their life of self-sufficiency.

Hospital(ity) Chronicles(fr)

Through family archives, drawings, animations and performances that draw on her long experience with illness, Brigitte Lacasse takes an incisive, critical look at the Quebec health care system.

Nostalgia for the Lake(es)

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.

Xapiri(pt)

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.

Yooper Creoles: Finnish Music in Michigan's Copper Country(en)

When the immigrants came to America, their cultures entered the "great melting pot." In Michigan's Upper Peninsula Finnish immigrants mixed their musical traditions with many other cultures, creating a sound that was unique to the "Copper Country."

No Address(en)

This feature-length documentary by Alanis Obomsawin examines the plight of Native people who come to Montreal searching for jobs and a better life. Often arriving without money, friends or jobs, a number of them quickly become part of the homeless population. Both dislocated from their traditional values and alienated from the rest of the population, they are torn between staying and returning home.

Harmonium in California(fr)

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.

Mayan Renaissance(en)

Mayan Renaissance is a feature length film which documents the glory of the ancient Maya civilization, the Spanish conquest in 1519, 500 years of oppression, and the courageous fight of the Maya to reclaim their voice and determine their own future, in Guatemala and throughout Central America. The film stars 1992 Nobel Peace Laureate and Maya Leader Rigoberta Mencu Tum. All of the images, voices, expert commentary and music in the film come directly from Central America, the heart of the Mayan World.