Social & External
The people behind it
Following filmmaker Taye Alvis as he looks to reconnect to his community of Walpole Island First Nation. Taye will explore his relationship to Walpole Island, and how one can reconnect to their traditions and culture by way of conversation, arts, and recreation.
Nitassinan is a feature-length documentary that bears witness to the Innu people and affirms our history—past, present, and future. The film testifies to our vitality, our resilience, and the unbreakable bond that unites us to the land. Because Nitassinan is not only the place we come from; it is a living part of ourselves. It has nourished our language, inspired our thoughts, and guided our steps. This film is a message of love for our territory, which saw our birth and which still accompanies us today, even in our dreams.
The fourth film in Alanis Obomsawin's landmark series on the Oka crisis uses a single, shameful incident as a lens through which to examine the region's long history of prejudice and injustice against the Mohawk population.
As the name of this short film promises, a filmmaker (Merata Mita), a cook (Anne Thorp) and a singer (Moana Maniapoto) sit down for an interview at Pākiri beach. With a focus on their personal lives, these highly accomplished wahine Māori are generous in sharing what motivates and challenges them in their mahi — with friendship a recurring theme. Filmed a year after the disbanding of her group Moana and the Moahunters, Maniapoto is particularly vulnerable in her reflections. The film was made by Honours student Sam Cruickshank as part of a Film and Media Studies degree at Auckland University.
This documentary is comprised of three shorts: 'El Afinque de Marín' that follows the musicians of the group Madera. 'Yo hablo a Caracas' about an indigenous leader and his reply to the authorities of the venezuelan goverment regarding the violations towards his people and finally 'Mayami Nuestro' chronicles the relationship of venezuelans during the eighties with the city of Miami.
A compelling study of the Hopi that captures their deep spirituality and reveals their integration of art and daily life. Amidst beautiful images of Hopi land and life, a variety of Hopi — a farmer, a religious elder, a grandmother, a painter, a potter, and a weaver — speak about the preservation of the Hopi way. Their philosophy of living in balance and harmony with nature is a model to the Western world of an environmental ethic in action.
Profile of the Crow Indian Mission in Lodge Grass, Montana.
Gil 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.
'Falas da Terra' sheds light on the plurality and the struggle of the indigenous people for the right to exist, in a historical rescue of valuing their cultures.
Focused on an inspiring and touching dialogue between Gilles Vigneault and Fred Pellerin, the documentary tells the story of Quebec by digging deep into an ancestral tradition etched into our cultural DNA: the production of maple syrup.
A century after a village and its paper mill were abandoned, a group of actors is tasked with recreating the fantasized daily life of its inhabitants.
A lyrical film ode to the odehimin or heart berry. A two-spirit Anishnaabe person finds themself in a dark place with their body. They undertake a healing journey, stating aloud their intentions and reconnecting with the land and the water for strength. As they get more in touch with their body and the beings around them, we begin to see them heal.
María is an Amorúa girl; an indigenous group that traveled the savannas of Orinoquía as nomads. She lives with her grandmother Matilde, her sister diana and her cousins in Puerto Carreño, in the Colombia-Venezuela border. The amorúa are considered wild and are not literate. Matilde wants her granddaughters to learn to write and read to live better in this town of "rational whites" as they call us. The director follows María's life for 8 years from her childhood to her adolescence and invites her to travel the places her grandma did as a nomad.
For millennia, Native Americans successfully stewarded and shaped their landscapes, but centuries of colonization have disrupted their ability to maintain their traditional land management practices. From deserts, coastlines, forests, mountains, and prairies, Native communities across the US are restoring their ancient relationships with the land. As the climate crisis escalates these time-tested practices of North America's original inhabitants are becoming increasingly essential in a rapidly changing world.
From the lower St. Lawrence, a picture of whale hunting that looks more like a round-up, with a corral, whale-boys and all. In 1534, when he stopped at the island he named l'Île-aux-Coudres, Jacques Cartier saw how the Indians captured the little white beluga whales by setting a fence of saplings into off-shore mud. In the film, the islanders show that the old method still works, thanks to the trusting 'sea-pigs,' the same old tide, and a little magic.
An 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.
A woman with a deep love of the land, Yolande Simard Perrault sees her life as having been shaped by a planetary upheaval in Charlevoix, Quebec, millions of years ago. As enduring as the Canadian Shield, she’s a woman of strength and spirit, a child of the crater left by the meteor’s impact. This documentary portrays a determined woman who’s the reflection of a land created on an immense scale. She was the creative and life partner of filmmaker Pierre Perrault, who gave up everything to be by her side. The film charts the influence of her unquenchable dreams and her contribution to the building of a people’s collective memory. In a stream of images and words, Simard Perrault recounts the splendours of the landscape and the people who shaped it. Generous and boundless, she embarks on a quest for identity that nurtures and perpetuates the oeuvre of the man who breathed new life into Quebec cinema.
The “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.
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
RETURN tells the story of a retired Green Beret who embarks on a healing journey from Montana to Vietnam. There he retraces his steps, shares his wartime experiences with his son, treats his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and seeks out the mountain tribespeople he once lived with and fought alongside as a Special Forces officer.
Bastien is twenty years old and has been an activist for five years in the main extreme right party. When the presidential campaign begins, he's invited by his superior to commit even further. Initiated into the art of decking himself out like a politician, he starts to dream of a career, but old demons surge forth...
While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, director Bryan Fogel connects with renegade Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov—a pillar of his country’s “anti-doping” program. Over dozens of Skype calls, urine samples, and badly administered hormone injections, Fogel and Rodchenkov grow closer despite shocking allegations that place Rodchenkov at the center of Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program.
In a crime-plagued neighborhood near Miami, brutal, bare-knuckled backyard fights give young men a chance to earn money -- and self-respect.
Alex Gibney explores the charged issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, following a trail from the first known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States and all way to the Vatican.
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
A look at the origins, history and conspiracies behind the "Majestic 12", a clandestine group of military and corporate figureheads charged with reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology.
Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
Through 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.
Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
Filmed at the end of Taylor Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour in Vancouver, B.C., this complete, in-depth 45-song concert includes the complete 'The Tortured Poets Department' set and special mashups.
A new documentary by filmmaker-photographer Raymond Depardon – where justice and psychiatry meet.
The Captains is a feature-length documentary film written and directed by William Shatner. The film follows Shatner as he interviews the other actors who have portrayed starship captains in the Star Trek franchise.
Brothers addicted to speed at any price. Documentary following the motorcycle road racing careers, and fate, of the Dunlop family.
The film follows adventurer Jeff Johnson as he retraces the epic 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins to Patagonia.
A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.
The film is based on interviews with 2,000 women from 50 countries, and covers the status of women all over the world. The topics covered include forced marriages, sexual assault, female genital mutilation, acid attacks, motherhood, sexuality, menstruation, education and the professional success of women.
