Social & External
Buell Quain
Paul Berthelot
Quain's Friend
A 13-year-old Indian boy is found unconscious after being attacked in the jungle by the evil spirit Fayu Ujmu. A shaman attempts to ritually tame the spirit and advises the boy’s father to capture it. This story is based on a Chachi Indian legend; it was shot with indigenous inhabitants of the jungle community of Loma Linda, on the Rio Cayapas.
The historic gathering of three hundred indigenous activists from North, South and Central America who met in Quito, Ecuador, in July 1990 to organize a cross-continental indigenous resistance to the Columbus Quincentennial.
50 years on, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy is the oldest continuing protest occupation site in the world. Taking a fresh lens this is a bold dive into a year of protest and revolutionary change for First Nations people.
Legendary documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin provides a glimpse of what action-driven decolonization looks like in Norway House, one of Manitoba's largest First Nation communities.
A documentary film about Comanche activist LaDonna Harris, who led an extensive life of Native political and social activism, and is now passing on her traditional cultural and leadership values to a new generation of emerging Indigenous leaders.
An experimental documentary about dead turtles, crab swarms, decaying tennis courts, and microscopic histories. The filmmakers shot their explorations into the abandoned golf courses, factories, and resorts of Sarasota, Florida and spoke to local youths who are using them for new and strange purposes. What would the Surrealists and Situationists think of a suburban, subtropical tourist town? What goes on in a storage unit in the dead of night? What is the afterlife of a decommissioned train car? What ghosts haunt a ruined hotel? What is the life cycle of a city? When will waters wash it all away?
Ningwasum follows two time travellers Miksam and Mingsoma, played by Subin Limbu and Shanta Nepali respectively, in the Himalayas weaving indigenous folk stories, culture, climate change and science fiction.
Building Communism isn’t just about destroying the status quo, it’s about bringing people together in the process.
It’s a model story, an extraordinary adventure, a tale of revolutionary practice and tension, among anarchy and irony, simplicity, curiosity and vitality throughout the whole of Europe, its wars and the social struggles of the 1900s. A tale on how to live all in one breath, responsibly, diving into contradictions, "getting one's hands dirty", and still keeping one's balance between theory and practice.˝
March 2008. The renowned journal ‘Science’ publishes an article confirming that the human bones discovered in 2004 on the island of Flores in Indonesia are indeed those of a new species of man. These tiny men lived there just a few thousand years ago... Scientists have named this new cousin “Homo floresiensis”, the Man of Flores.
This short impressionist documentary looks at the creation of a Button Blanket by integrating the performance of a traditional dance with the art of the West Coast Heiltsuk Nation.
This film is a portrait of unique cultural space for Spirits, Gods and People. While permanent theatres are commonly built in most cosmopolitan modern cities, Hong Kong preserves a unique theatrical architecture, a Chinese tradition that has lasted more than a century - Bamboo Theatre.
A dark and magical visit to the fabled Parisian address Rue Fontaine 42. This was the residence of André Breton, the mastermind of surrealism, who surrounded himself with an impressive collection of modern, Western art and ethnographic objects from Oceania and North America. The collection was sold and divided up in 2003 at a controversial auction. 'The Trick Brain' is a delirious montage and a trip back in time to Breton's private art collection, where Atkins has been scouring the archives and come up with a possessing interior film of the place that once was, complete with surrealistic paintings, scores of Indian figures and hundreds of other displayed rarities. The film's soundtrack is provided by an observant narrator, who reveals to us that the objects shown are not necessarily what they claim to be - but instead are catalysts for some kind of wonderful linguistic virus which reveals the real identity of things.
Captain Kleinschmidt leads an expedition sponsored by the Carnegie Museum to the arctic regions of Alaska and Siberia to study the natives and the animal life.
Drawing on original footage from National Geographic, Etched in Bone explores the impact of one notorious bone theft by a member of the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. Hundred of bones were stolen and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, until it became known to Arnhem elders in the late 1990s. The return of the sacred artefacts was called for, resulting in a tense standoff between indigenous tribespeople and the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian.
An experimental ethnographic documentary that criticizes the colonizer view of anthropology.
An experimental intake of Ojore Nuru Lutalo as he recounts the 22 years he spent in political isolation, and the flourishing comradery he built with prison abolitionist, Bonnie Kerness, whose work supported him and other prisoners.
A key overview of twentieth-century American fascism and antifascism produced in 1991 by the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee.
A polemic against Werner Herzog and the making of "Fitzcarraldo", exploring the question of the filmmaker's ethical and moral responsibility.
Lonnie Kauk’s personal journey to honor his indigenous Yosemite roots, and to connect with his legendary father by repeating his iconic climbs.
