8.2A film about the gold panning adventures of Hans Söderström, an indigenous Swede. The story stretches from Scandinavia to Africa, via Asia and the Americas, but ultimately boils down to the simple boyish dream of finding gold. Lots of it. And oneself.
5.0The “Prophecy of the 7th Fire” says a “black snake” will bring destruction to the earth. For Winona LaDuke, the “black snake” is oil trains and pipelines. When she learns that Canadian-owned Enbridge plans to route a new pipeline through her tribe’s 1855 Treaty land, she and her community spring into action to save the sacred wild rice lakes and preserve their traditional indigenous way of life. Launching an annual spiritual horse ride along the proposed pipeline route, speaking at community meetings and regulatory hearings. Winona testifies that the pipeline route follows one of historical and present-day trauma. The tribe participates in the pipeline permitting process, asserting their treaty rights to protect their natural resources. LaDuke joins with her tribe and others to demand that the pipelines’ impact on tribal people’s resources be considered in the permitting process.
0.0In the 50 years since he carved his first totem pole, Robert Davidson has come to be regarded as one of the world’s foremost modern artists. Charles Wilkinson (Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World) brings his trademark inquisitiveness and craftsmanship to this revealing portrait of an unassuming living legend. Weaving together engaging interviews with the artist, his offspring, and a host of admirers, Haida Modern extols the sweeping impact of both Davidson’s artwork and the legions it’s inspired.
10.0An intimate exploration of the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of murder in 1977, with commentary from those involved, including Peltier himself.
9.0On Canada's Pacific coast this film finds a young Haida artist, Robert Davidson, shaping miniature totems from argillite, a jet-like stone. The film follows the artist to the island where he finds the stone, and then shows how he carves it in the manner of his grandfather, who taught him the craft.
9.0This 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.
0.0By retracing the mixed heritage of First Nations peoples and Quebecers, painting a modern portrait, and sketching a human geography, this film helps us (re)discover the beauty and strength of our common territory: the Americas.
9.0In a dark, ambiguous environment, minuscule particles drift slowly before the lens. The image focuses to reveal spruce trees and tall pines, while Innu voices tell us the story of this territory, this flooded forest. Muffled percussive sounds gradually become louder, suggesting the presence of a hydroelectric dam. The submerged trees gradually transform into firebrands as whispers bring back the stories of this forest.
0.0This documentary follows Dawn Murphy, or “Princess Delta Dawn”, who rose to fame in the 1980s and early 1990s and became the first Indigenous woman wrestler and the first Canadian woman wrestler to compete in Japan.
5.0Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.
0.0In this short documentary, a Musqueam elder rediscovers his Native language and traditions in the city of Vancouver, in the vicinity of which the Musqueam people have lived for thousands of years. Writing the Land captures the ever-changing nature of a modern city - the glass and steel towers cut against the sky, grass, trees and a sudden flash of birds in flight and the enduring power of language to shape perception and create memory.
0.0This feature-length documentary chronicles the Sundance ceremony brought to Eastern Canada by William Nevin of the Elsipogtog First Nation of the Mi'kmaq. Nevin learned from Elder Keith Chiefmoon of the Blackfoot Confederacy in Alberta. Under the July sky, participants in the Sundance ceremony go four days without food or water. Then they will pierce the flesh of their chests in an offering to the Creator. This event marks a transmission of culture and a link to the warrior traditions of the past.
0.0When internationally renowned Haida carver Robert Davidson was only 22 years old, he carved the first new totem pole on British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii in almost a century. On the 50th anniversary of the pole’s raising, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter steps easily through history to revisit that day in August 1969, when the entire village of Old Massett gathered to celebrate the event that would signal the rebirth of the Haida spirit.
8.0The story of a young boy forced to spend all five years of his short life in hospital while the federal and provincial governments argued over which was responsible for his care, as well as the long struggle of Indigenous activists to force the Canadian government to enforce “Jordan’s Principle” — the promise that no First Nations children would experience inequitable access to government-funded services again.
7.3Elliot Page brings attention to the injustices and injuries caused by environmental racism in his home province, in this urgent documentary on Indigenous and African Nova Scotian women fighting to protect their communities, their land, and their futures.
0.0This Peabody Award-winning documentary from New Mexico PBS looks at the European arrival in the Americas from the perspective of the Pueblo Peoples.
0.0ARCTIC SUMMER is a poetic meditation on Tuktoyaktuk, an Indigenous community in the Arctic. The film captures Tuk during one of the last summers before climate change forced Tuk's coastal population to relocate to more habitable land.
0.0Poetic rescue of the memory of our Tupinambá ancestors. Considered extinct in the 16th century. The film has the testimony of Verá Miri, Chief / Pajé of the Guarani Mimbiá tribe.
1.0On a misty morning in the fall of 1985, a small group of Haida people blockaded a muddy dirt road on Lyell Island, demanding the government work with Indigenous people to find a way to protect the land and the future. In a riveting new feature documentary drawn from more than a hundred hours of archival footage and audio, award-winning director Christopher Auchter (Now Is the Time) recreates the critical moment when the Haida Nation’s resolute act of vision and conscience changed the world.
9.0A documentary on the war between the Guatemalan military and the Mayan population, with first hand accounts by Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.
8.2A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
6.1A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
6.1Following the surrender of Geronimo, Massai, the last Apache warrior is captured and scheduled for transportation to a Florida reservation. On the way he manages to escape and heads for his homeland to win back his girl and settle down to grow crops. His pursuers have other ideas though.
6.5Sam Burton's second wife is a Kiowa, and their son is therefore born mixed-race. When a struggle starts between the whites and the native Kiowas, the Burton family is split between loyalties.
8.0Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
7.0Nine filmmakers each profile a young girl from a different part of the world to weave a global tapestry of youth in the 21st century.
7.2In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
6.8The making of Matrix Revolutions, The (2003) is briefly touched on here in this documentary. Interviews with various cast and crew members inform us how they were affected by the deaths of Gloria Foster and Aaliyah, and also delve into the making of the visual effects that takes up a lot of screen time. Written by Rhyl Donnelly
7.2Deep beneath the surface in the Syrian province of Ghouta, a group of female doctors have established an underground field hospital. Under the supervision of paediatrician Dr. Amani and her staff of doctors and nurses, hope is restored for some of the thousands of children and civilian victims of the ruthless Syrian civil war.
5.9Serial killer Dennis Nilsen narrates his life and horrific crimes via a series of chilling audiotapes recorded from his jail cell.
7.0The epic tale of the development of the American West from the 1830s through the Civil War to the end of the century, as seen through the eyes of one pioneer family.
6.6Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated future world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?
6.3Chapman is an ex-marine in Brazil's slums, battling the yakuza outfit who attacked his sister and left her for dead.
7.3An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.
6.9A boy and his dog, White Fang, must try to save the noble Haida tribe from evil white men in turn-of-the-century Alaska.
6.1From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.
7.6In the 22nd century, a paraplegic Marine is dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission, but becomes torn between following orders and protecting an alien civilization.
6.5A documentary that explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.
6.9Penetrating the insular world of New York's Hasidic community, focusing on three individuals driven to break away despite threats of retaliation.