The film weaves together the filmmaker's introspections with survivor's collective memories. Amid deciphering a diary, the filmmaker reflects on personal encounters.
As herself
This film follows the aftermath of the Oka crisis, which brought Indigenous rights into sharp focus. After the barricades came down, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was created, and travelled to more than 100 communities and heard from more than 1,000 representatives. For two-and-a-half years, teams of Indigenous filmmakers followed the Commission on its journey.
In 2016, Aekaphong’s uncle was murdered in his house alongside his wife. A year later, Aekaphong returns to his hometown to investigate the man’s past and come to terms with his absence.
Filmed in the quaint prairie town of Herbert, Saskatchewan, Heaven or Not by filmmakers Zuzana Hudackova and Danijel Margetic is an intimate portrayal of one man's tireless journey to give his life greater meaning. John Gerbrandt, a WWII veteran, has been singlehandedly building a 7,000-square-foot house over the past three decades with nothing more than his pension and salvaged materials. With no formal training, he is fuelled by a powerful determination to prove his worth to his God, his family, and his community. John's story transcends day-to-day life in a small town and reaches the realm of deep spirituality marked by an unwavering commitment. Now at the age of 84, suffering from health problems and the financial burden of property taxes, John might not be able to finish his lifelong endeavor.
The video documentary "A Struggle to Remember: Fighting for Our Families" puts faces and narratives to the story of the struggle for family leave in Canada. The 20-minute film shows how it became accepted that women be able to return to their jobs after maternity leave and how men and women gained real and enforceable work-life balance provisions.
RAPE PLAY is an experimental documentary that explores fanfiction writing amongst teenage girls online and the learned narrativization of sexual experiences. Through interviews, lyrical essays, and fantastical reenactment, it touches on internet history, sexual assault discourse, and the magical cultural production happening in the bedrooms of teenage girls worldwide every day.
A Sámi woman fights for her right to claim a tax deduction against the purchase of a dog. Why the Swedish authorities fail to recognize the dog's use as a reindeer herding tool versus a pet opens up a larger discussion about Indigenous rights and economic discrimination in this humorous takedown of the Swedish government's ignorance of Sámi culture.
"Here Where It All Ends" is an experimental, poetic short film that moves between documentary and fiction to address an endangered culture, that of indigenous people in the Brazil. It is, in particular, a sharing of knowledge carried out in Aldeia Bugio, at all stages of 16mm filming, botanical development and sound capture in a collective way. It seeks to reactivate the memory of the origins of the Laklãnõ/Xokleng people.
Mauri (life principle, life force, vital essence inherent in all living things) The film is an intimate, visually stunning testament to a land and a people who have survived removal, exploitation and colonization — and to the healing ways that are part of the Māori ancestral knowledge. It juxtaposes the enduring trauma of colonialism with the resilience offered through Māori ancestral healing traditions.
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.
Documentary relating Ingmar Bergman's life, from his high school graduation up until he became an established filmmaker in the latter half of the 40's.
This documentary recounts the difficult choice actress Mary Astor had to make after learning her personal, very intimate, diaries had been stolen. The film tells the story of Astor's 1936 child custody case.
A short film of the first weeks of strict national lockdown, filmed in Barcelona on a classic home video camera Hi8. Narrates the story of three women who share a flat and who create a microworld not only to survive the global pandemic but also to survive themselves.
Memory is a ghost. Lucio, a printing press worker, takes one last walk around the machines with whom he shared everything. He remembers when his mechanisms used to move and through that mechanical movement he reflects about his own life.
"A documentary film which looks at the issue of British Columbia Native land claims and how the aboriginals link their culture to the land, which has been stolen by the dominant white culture of North America. In the film, the argument is presented that the lands have been taken from the Natives without any clear treaty agreements and how attempts had been made to wipe out Native culture through the Residential School system. " Produced by the Union of BC Indian Chiefs in 1975.
Promised Land is a social justice documentary that follows two tribes in the Pacific Northwest: the Duwamish and the Chinook, as they fight for the restoration of treaty rights they've long been denied. In following their story, the film examines a larger problem in the way that the government and society still looks at tribal sovereignty.
In the early 1960s the Canadian government conducted an experiment in social engineering. Three young Inuit boys were separated from their families in the Arctic and were sent to Ottawa, the nation's capital, to live with white families and to be educated in white schools. The consequences the experiment would have on the boys, their identity and culture was brushed aside. The bureaucrats did not anticipate the outcome. The three grow up to be political activists and leaders - often at odds with the government that brought them south. They establish aboriginal rights in Canada and are instrumental in the creation of Nunavut, the world's largest self-governed aboriginal territory. But it all comes at a tremendous personal cost. Peter Ittinuar, Zebedee Nungak, and Eric Tagoona recount their stories, achievements and challenges in this film about an attempt at assimilation, empowerment, and the triumph of the human spirit.
Examines the violence and civil disobedience leading up to the hallmark decision in U.S. v. Washington, with particular reference to the Nisqually Indians of Frank's Landing in Washington.