Rematriation

This short experimental documentary challenges stereotypes about Indigenous people in the workplace. Featuring portraits set to a powerful poem by Mohawk writer Janet Marie Rogers, the film urges viewers to go beyond their preconceived notions. As I Am is a celebration of Indigenous people's pride in their work and culture.

Las Raíces del Roble

Some people think John Muir was a hero. Others: not so much. The Adventure Brothers hike the famous John Muir Trail (a.k.a. Nüümü Poyo) to investigate the conservationist's controversial legacy.

In this layered short film, filmmaker Janine Windolph takes her young sons fishing with their kokum (grandmother), a residential school survivor who retains a deep knowledge and memory of the land. The act of reconnecting with their homeland is a cultural and familial healing journey for the boys, who are growing up in the city. It’s also a powerful form of resistance for the women.

A documentary about Áillohaš (Nils-Aslak Valkeapää), a musician, painter, and poet of the Sámi people in Finland.

Stoney Nakoda Film Project

MAXIMÓN - Devil or Saint (66min.) is a documentary about the controversial Maya deity, also known as San Simon or the drinking and smoking saint of Guatemala. He is a mixture of ancient Maya beliefs and Christianity. The movie concentrates on the people who surround Maximón with their strong personalities, opinions and faith. The documentary gives us a rare view into the rituals and fiestas honoring Maximón. The cult of Maximón is flourishing because he performs miracles. He is also feared and despised because he is used to cast curses that can result in death. Ultimately, Maximón transcends the duality of good and evil, reflecting the Maya cosmovision in which everything in the universe co-exists.

Yellowtail is the story of a young Native American cowboy searching for meaning as his chaotic lifestyle begins to wear on him both physically and mentally. To find his purpose the young man has to reflect on his upbringing as a native to become the spiritually connect man he was meant to be.

Rember Yahuarcani is an indigenous artist from the Uitoto Nation who lives in Lima, Peru. From his clan, the White Heron, only two families remain in Peru. Rember's paintings are inspired by the stories his grandmother Martha told him before she died. However, he has never dived into the darkest part of his nation’s history: the indigenous massacre during the rubber boom. Martha is a survivor of the horror and she speaks to Rember in dreams guiding him in a spiritual journey back to the jungle. He first visits his parents, who are also artists, in the Peruvian jungle. And finally, he sails to La Chorrera, in Colombia, where he confronts the past and meets other members of his clan.

Flor Brilhante e as Cicatrizes da Pedra

By 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.

A fearless horse bonds two men to each other and to the traditions that define their community.

The Amazon plays a vital part in regulating the planet's temperature. Yet, last year, forest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon soared by 85 per cent. Illegal logging and slash-and-burn agriculture are decimating the land. With huge profits to be made, the Amazon is a dangerous place to ask questions. Despite the threat, the Amazonian tribes want the world to hear their message.

In the form of a poetic love letter to its nation, this short film reveals a strong community and the anchoring of the new generation in this rich culture.

At Western Australia’s first Indigenous-run police station, two officers learn language and culture to help them police one of the most remote beats in the world.

Tz'üntz'ü

The filmmaker traces the loss of her ancestral language over three generations of her family, and her own desire to recover it.

This short documentary depicts the formation in 1959 of the first successful co-operative in an Inuit community in Northern Québec. The film describes how, with other Inuit of the George River community, the Annanacks formed a joint venture that included a sawmill, a fish-freezing plant and a small boat-building industry.

The North of Cauca is the region of Colombia most affected by the internal armed conflict since 1940. There is an orchestra of ancestral music composed of young indigenous people of the Nasa ethnic group who, with their instruments, their voice and their poetry, remember Maryi Vanessa Coicue, Sebastian Ul and Ingrid Guejia, three of the hundreds of indigenous children who have died because of this eternal and useless war between leftist guerrillas, armed groups of the extreme right, drug traffickers and the Colombian State.

In the north of the state of Pará is the largest block of protected forests in the world; an area of ​​Amazon rainforest the size of the UK and home to a multitude of stories. Indigenous people, ranchers, squatters, quilombolas, businessmen and politicians reflect in their own way the impacts of the possible expansion of the BR-163 into the forest, as far as the border with Suriname. The highway project was created at the time of the military dictatorship, and until today as a shadow over the region. But this is not a movie about a road. It is a film about the abysses that separate those who share the same land.