Recent videos of interest

First Nations and Indigenous

• 8th fire
  A provocative, high-energy journey through Aboriginal country showing why we need to fix Canada's 500 year-old relationship with Indigenous peoples -- a relationship mired in colonialism, conflict and denial. Episode 1 - INDIGENOUS IN THE CITY . Episode 2 - IT'S TIME . Episode 3 - WHOSE LAND IS IT ANYWAY? Episode 4 - AT THE CROSSROADS.
• A tent on Mars | Une tente sur Mars
  Thirty years after the closing of the Schefferville's mining colony, and after taking over the town abandoned by non natives, the Innus are facing a new challenge: the reopening of the iron mines.
• Alanis Obomsawin films
  A collection of Alanis Obomsawin films in DVD, streaming video and VHS format.
• Cave of forgotten dreams
  Follows an exclusive expedition into the nearly inaccessible Chauvet Cave in France, home to the most ancient visual art known to have been created by man. An unforgettable cinematic experience that provides an unique glimpse of pristine artwork dating back to human hands over 30,000 years ago, almost twice as old as any previous discovery.
• Crude Sacrifice: you can't reclaim humanity
  Looks at how the community of Fort Chipewyan in northern Alberta is affected by the exploitation of Canada's Tar Sands and how the federal and provicial governments are dealing with local concerns.
• Cry Rock
  “Less than fifteen Nuxalk language speakers and storytellers remain in Bella Coola, British Columbia, today. One of these elders is the director Banchi Hanuse's 80-year-old grandmother. In a technologically obsessed century, it would seem easier to record Nuxalk stories for future generations, but Hanuse resists...”
• Finding our way: moving beyond Canada's apartheid = Neba wheti hon'a e kwuznata
  Stories of conflict between Indigenous people, governments and industry: “... documentary film in 3 chapters with and about the Burns Lake band and the Cheslatta Carrier Nation, two First Nations bands located in central B.C., Canada”
• Harold of Orange
  Originally released in 1984. A satirical comedy that explores the interaction of American Indians and philanthropic organizations. Draws on trickster myths common to many Indian tribes to dispel Hollywood stereotypes of the 'wild Indian' and the 'noble savage.'
• In celebration of Nunavut series: Life in the settlements
  A collection of 60 videos comprised of 107 films made between 1942 and 1996, on life in the Arctic from first contact to today. While some of these archival films reflect the colonialist attitudes of their era, they remain important historical documents.
• Journey to Nunavut : the Kreelak story
  Originally produced in 1999. Tells the story of a Caribou Inuit family who were Canada's last nomads, from their early life hunting on the tundra to when they take the reins of the new territory of Nunavut on April 1, 1999.
• Kanata: legacy of the children of Aataentsic
  Originally produced in 1999. Huron-Wendat filmmaker René Siouï Labelle retraces the path of his ancestors, surveys their territories and reflects upon the identity of the Wendat nation.
• Keepers of the fire
  Presents the stories of aboriginal women who have participated in important aboriginal struggles in Canada. Mohawk women tell of their role in the 1990 crisis at Oka. Haida women reminisce about their stand on the picket lines and their arrests in the action that stopped logging on Lyell Island in the Queen Charlottes. Maliseet women recall their campaign, lasting eight years, that changed the Indian Act to accord status and rights to all Indian women. Native women in Toronto who run a native women's shelter ...
• Kiviaq versus Canada
  Zacharias Kunuk travels to Edmonton to meet Kiviaq, Canada's first Inuit lawyer, former Golden Gloves boxing champion, city alderman, and the only Inuk to play with the Edmonton Eskimos football team. Kiviaq is currently suing the federal government of Canada with a claim demanding equal rights for Inuit, whom, he argues, are neither defined in law nor granted the same privileges as other aboriginal people.
• Nanook revisited
  The filmmakers revisit Inukjuak, the Inuit village where Flaherty filmed Nanook of the North. Examines the realities behind the ground-breaking documentary and the changes since it was made almost 70 years ago. Shows the reactions of the Inuit living in the village, to the film, and also looks at the inaccuracies and staged scenes in the original.
• Okimah
  Originally released in 1998. Follows Cree hunters on the most important event of the season, the annual goose hunt. Okimah is at once a homage to generations of Cree hunters, a loving look at a cultural tradition and a plea for responsible stewardship of our resources.
• Our spirits don't speak English: Indian boarding school
  Imagine you are a child, taken from your home, your family, taken from everything you know. In 1869, the U.S. government enacted a policy of educating Native American children in the ways of western society. By the late 1960's, more than 100,000 had been forced to attend Indian Boarding School.
• Passage
  The report of deceased Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin and his crew succumbing to madness and cannibalism was brought back to England by Scottish doctor John Rae. Unable to accept this horrific news, Franklin's widow and author Charles Dickens waged a bitter campaign successfully discrediting Rae and marking the Inuit people with the label of murderous cannibals.
• Pelts: politics of the fur trade
  NFB film originally produced in 1989. 'Canada's oldest industry, fur trade is facing challenges. Examines the morality of killing animals for fur.'
• Power
  When Hydro-Quebec announces its intention to proceed with the enormous James Bay II hydroelectric project, the 15,000 Cree who live in the region decide to stand up to the giant utility. Power is the compelling, behind-the-scenes story of the Cree's five-year battle to save the Great Whale river and their traditional way of life.
• Reconquering the conquest
  Originally produced in 1993. French-speaking Canadians battle for a unilingual French-speaking Quebec. At the same time, the Cree people battle the Quebec government over territory in the north. Can a single federal state survive if it contains a couple of nations and two major language groups? Part of the Nationalism: Blood and Belonging series.
• Reservation soldiers
  “Filmed over several years, Reservation Soldiers focuses on the relationship between the Canadian military and aboriginal youth.“
• Richard Cardinal: cry from a diary of a Métis child
  Original version date: 1986. A moving tribute to Richard Cardinal, a Métis adolescent who committed suicide at 17, in 1984. Removed from his home at age 4 because of family problems, he was then moved between 28 foster homes, group homes and shelters in Alberta for the next 13 years. His diary upon which this film is based is a sad legacy of a troubled youth, his life and death, and Alberta's child welfare system. His death prompted an inquiry into and reform of Alberta's child welfare system.
• Shelley Niro compilation
  Shelley Niro (born 1954) is a Mohawk filmmaker and visual artist from New York and Ontario. Contents: Overweight with crooked teeth (5:00 min., 1997) -- The shirt (5:55 min., 2003) -- Sky woman with us, Shelley Niro (7:00 min., 2002) -- Tree (5:00 min., 2006) -- The flying head (5:00 min., 2008) -- Hunger (6:03 min., 2008) -- rechargin' (2:49 min., 2007)
• Song of Eskasoni
  Produced in 1993. The village of Eskasoni on Cape Breton Island is the home of Micmac poet Rita Joe. The revival of Native traditions and spirituality in Eskasoni inspires much of her writing.
• Tales of sand and snow
  DVD only. In a quest to understand his own cultural identity and rediscover the spiritual values of his own people, Canadian emigré Hyacinthe Combary, an African native, turns to another indigenous culture, from the snows of North America. ... [A] cinematic dialogue between the Gourmantché of Burkina Faso, who read their people's future in the sand-patterns of the desert, and the Atikamekw of Québec, who connect with the spirits through snow-encased sweat lodges. Both cultures have been victims of colonization, ...
• The Blood records
  A haunting tale of disease and loss set in a tuberculosis sanatorium in 1944 in the heart of the Canadian prairies. Explores the world of a young girl, ill with tuberculosis. Struggling to escape her diseased body, her spirit roams freely throughout the long days and nights, reminiscing about her family, fearful of the fate of a beloved older brother who is fighting in The War, missing her native language (French) which is now foreign to her tongue after two years in the English hospital....
• The experimental Eskimos
  Documents an extraordinary attempt at social engineering. The film follows Peter Ittinuar, Zebedee Nungak and Eric Tagoona, who, as 12-year-old boys, were shipped South in the early 1960s from their homes in the Canadian Arctic to attend public schools in Ottawa. All three went on to become activists and leaders, paving the way for aboriginal rights in Canada and around the world.
• The gift
  Originally released in Canada in 1998. An exploration of the intertwined lives of people and corn, illustrating the traditional, spiritual, economic and political importance of corn in the lives of indigenous peoples throughout North America, from the Six Nations of southern Ontario and New York to the Mayas of Mexico.
• The gift of diabetes
  Filmmaker Brion Whitford is an Ojibway who lives with the pain of advanced diabetes. As his health worsened, his interest in his own culture grew. Follows Brion's struggle to regain his health by learning about the medicine wheel, a holistic tool grounded in Aboriginal understanding of the interconnectedness of all dimensions of life. Also explores the historical trauma of colonization and how it continues to affect Aboriginal people's psychological and physical well being.
• The invisible nation
  Richard Desjardins and Robert Monderie spotlight an often ignored people whom they lived beside but knew little about. Their turbulent history, brought to the screen for the first time, dates back over 5,000 years. But the next century may well be their last. For too long, they have lived in abject conditions, sometimes worse than in Third World countries. Yet the two filmmakers didn't have to travel thousands of kilometres to find these people. The Algonquin nation lives right here in Quebec.
• The Other side of the ledge
  Originally issued as a motion picture in 1972. Presents an articulate denial of many facets of the white man's version of Canadian history.
• The People of the Kattawapiskak River
  Alanis Obomsawin’s documentary exposes the housing crisis faced by 1,700 Cree in Northern Ontario, a situation that led Attawapiskat’s band chief, Theresa Spence, to ask the Canadian Red Cross for help. With the Idle No More movement making front page headlines, this film provides background and context for one aspect of the growing crisis.
• The story of the Coast Salish knitters
  Originally produced in 2000. For almost a century, the Coast Salish knitters of southern Vancouver Island have produced Cowichan sweaters from handspun wool. These distinctive sweaters are known and loved around the world, but the Aboriginal women who make them remain largely invisible. Combines rare archival footage with the voices of three generations of woolworkers.
• The washing of tears
  The Mowachaht, whale hunters and fishermen who had lived at Friendly Cove for thousands of years are uprooted from their homeland and move to Vancouver Island, to a new site under the walls of a pulp mill. They suffered extremes of pollution, violence, alcohol abuse ... Then in the 1990's, in defiance of the agony of their history and to overcome the grief of the present, the Mowachaht and their neighbors the Muchalaht revived their songs and dances and by reclaiming their culture, rediscover their pride.
• To Brooklyn and back: a Mohawk journey
  The Kahnawake Mohawks of Quebec occupied a 10 square block area in the North Gowanus section of Brooklyn, which became known as Little Caughnawaga. The men, skilled ironworkers, came to New York in search of work and brought their wives, children and often, extended family with them. The story of the Mohawk ironworkers is an important one and is one that has been told and continues to be told through documentaries, newspaper and magazine articles. Yet the stories of Kahnawake Mohawk women who lived in Brooklyn ...
• Two spirits
  Fred Martinez was a [young] nádleehí, or a male-bodied person with a feminine essence, who was murdered in a hate crime at the age of sixteen. Discusses the traditional Native American perspective on gender and sexuality and the need for a balanced interrelationship between the feminine and masculine.
• Urban elder
  Originally produced in 1997. Cree Indian Vern Harper tells how he reaches into the past to integrate traditional native culture into city life, including the tradition of elder. Follows Vern to sweat lodge purification ceremony, ballet rehearsal of his daughter, healing ceremony, political march and counseling sessions with native prisoners at Warkworth Federal Prison.
• Usiimmaluguq | Broken promises : the High Arctic relocation
  In 1953, Inuit from Port Harrison, now Inukjuak, Quebec, were relocated to new settlements in Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord, in the Northwest Territories, only one of a series of relocations. A slump in the fur market, the Inuit's chief source of income, and a need to increase settlement in the Arctic to protect Canada's sovereignty, were factors in the government's decision. Archival footage and interviews with survivors tell of the hardships the Inuit endured.
• You are on Indian land
  Originally produced in 1969. Documents the demonstration of Mohawk Indians, living in Canada, as they protest payment of import duties on personal purchases made in the United States, claiming exemption under the provisions of the Jay Treaty of 1794.