In a sweeping tale that spans 1000 years and multiple generations – from the distant past to the 19th century, the present day and a strange, dystopian future – this landmark collection traces the collective histories of Indigenous peoples across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Diverse in perspective, content and form, traversing the terrain of grief, love and dispossession, they each bear witness to these cultures’ ongoing struggles against patriarchy, colonialism and racism.
Banduk discovers that Mr Kool is smuggling birds out of Australia.
Follows the life of Native Canadian Saul Indian Horse as he survives residential school and life amongst the racism of the 1970s. A talented hockey player, Saul must find his own path as he battles stereotypes and alcoholism.
Two young women are raped on their way home. The story follows the lives of both women and the different ways they deal with the crime.
Filmed on location in Saskatchewan from the Qu'Appelle Valley to Hudson Bay, the documentary traces the filmmaker's quest for her Native foremothers in spite of the reluctance to speak about Native roots on the part of her relatives. The film articulates Métis women's experience with racism in both current and historical context, and examines the forces that pushed them into the shadows.
In North Carolina, Daniel Boone hears amazing tales about Kentucky and decides to move his family there. But first he has to find the Indian path that will lead him and earn enough money trapping to repay a loan. The Indians are not happy that settlers are coming, and make life difficult for them.
Cree matriarch Aline Spears survives a childhood in Canada’s residential school system to continue her family’s generational fight in the face of systemic starvation, racism, and sexual abuse. She uses her uncanny ability to understand and translate codes into working for a special division of the Canadian Air Force as a Cree code talker in World War II. The story unfolds over 100 years with a cumulative force that propels us into the future.
During a training exercise in an abandoned open-pit mine, a crew of Canadian astronauts are interrupted by an Atikamekw elder, who asks them to deliver an important message to the spirit of his community on the moon.
A coyote adopted by an old Navajo, Delgado, thinks he is a sheepdog, though he is not accepted by the other dogs of the area.
The film tells the story of four Cree siblings, Connie, Marianne, Gwen, and Anthony, separated as babies through Canada’s notorious Sixties Scoop, which saw indigenous children taken from their homes to be adopted by white families. Excited and curious, but also scared and afraid of rejection, they agree to meet for the first time over a holiday weekend in the mountains of Banff.
Explores the sensitive, and tense, relationship between life on an First Nations reservation and life in the outside world. When Native Canadian Silas Crow is forced to write a personal essay in order to get a much-desired job, he tells the story of the rape and murder of an Indian girl by a drunken thug. When the killer received a lenient two-year sentence for manslaughter, the First Nations community felt shock and anger—and tried desperately to deal with the after-effects of this lack of justice.
A white lawyer finds his values shaken when he is paired with an angry Indigenous activist who insists on kidnapping the head of a logging company to teach him the price of his destruction.
In 1885, German Zoo owner Carl Hagenbeck hired nine Aboriginal men from Bella Coola to perform their dances and songs for German audiences. The nine dancers spent one year in Germany performing in zoos and theatres in 22 cities. During summer 2005, the Canadian filmmaker Barbara Hager came to Germany to retrace the steps of the nine Nuxalk men on their original 13 month long tour.
Link and his brother flee their abusive father and embark on a journey where Link discovers his sexuality and rediscovers his Mi’kmaw heritage.
Three Kiowa boys attempt to escape a government boarding school in 1891, Oklahoma.
Anishinaabe elders of the Curve Lake First Nation reflect on the history, decline, and return of the traditional food gardens that connect their culture, land, and contemporary life.
Interviews and archival footage profile the life of Dennis Banks, American Indian Movement leader who looks back at his early life and the rise of the Movement.
A young Ojibwa girl from 1770 marries a Scottish fur trader and leaves home for the shores of Georgian Bay. Although the union is beneficial for her tribe, it results in hardship and isolation for Ikwe. Values and customs clash until, finally, the events of a dream Ikwe once had unfold with tragic clarity.
Ten women in Canada talk about being lesbian in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s: discovering the pulp fiction of the day about women in love, their own first affairs, the pain of breaking up, frequenting gay bars, facing police raids, men's responses, and the etiquette of butch and femme roles. Interspersed among the interviews and archival footage are four dramatized chapters from a pulp novel, "Forbidden Love".
A Seminole Indian captures a falcon on its yearly migration, but it yearns to be free.