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.
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.
Deep in Mexico’s mushroom-rich forests, two women from indigenous communities have become mycologists. This immersive sci-fi documentary follows their unusual, fungi-driven paths as they seek to reconcile the past and present while reimagining the future for themselves and the changing world they inhabit.
This film shows the splendor, enormous scope and indescribable beauty of this untouched land far to the north of Alaska, one of the last havens for caribou herds and polar bears. Shot over a period of four years, this film offers a unique insight in the lives of the most charismatic arctic animals.
The wildlife of the tundra on Alaska's north coast is particularly threatened by climate change.
When an academic unearths a forgotten history, residents of the small township of Pukekohe, including kaumātua who have never told their personal stories before, confront its deep and dark racist past.
Alaska... Here, in this vast and spectacularly beautiful land teeming with abundant wildlife, discover the "Spirit of the Wild." Experience it in the explosive calving of glaciers, the celestial fires of the Aurora Borealis. Witness it in the thundering stampede of caribou, the beauty of the polar bear and the stealthful, deadly hunt of the wolf pack.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
Flora Bear’s youngest granddaughter searches for truth and answers about her Indigenous grandmother’s life.
Three Alaska Native women work to save their endangered language, Kodiak Alutiiq, and ensure the future of their culture while confronting their personal demons. With just 41 fluent Native speakers remaining, mostly Elders, some estimate their language could die out within ten years. The small community travels to a remote Island, where a language immersion experiment unfolds with the remaining fluent Elders. Young camper Sadie, an at-risk 13 year old learner and budding Alutiiq dancer, is inspired and gains strength through her work with the teachers. Yet PTSD and politics loom large as the elders, teachers, and students try to continue the difficult task of language revitalization over the next five years.
Two Lawalapiti young men from Alto Xingu learn to build a canoe from the bark of the jatobá tree, a quick and simple technique that leaves the tree still rooted and alive, and that has ceased to be used and is only known by the oldest Lawalapiti men.
Katurãma: uma história de luta e resistência
Rematriation explores scientific, cultural, economic and sociopolitical perspectives, as citizens fight to protect the last big trees in British Columbia from being felled. The lessons we take away permeate the fabric of Canadian identity.
A documentary about climate change in Brazil, especially at Atafona Beach (in the Campos de Goytacazes region), which is being swallowed up by the sea. Narrated by Sonia Guajajara and Sidarta Ribeiro, the film deals with the genocide of the native people of Goytacazes.
Alanis Obomsawin, a North American Indian who earns her living by singing and making films, is the mother of an adopted child. She talks about her life, her people, and her responsibilities as a single parent. Her observations shake some of our cultural assumptions.
An insight into the Indigenous culture and traditions in Taiwan, from clothing, tattooing, art and music to tourist destinations.
In this evocative meditation, a disturbing link is made between the resource extraction industries’ exploitation of the land and violence inflicted on Indigenous women and girls. Or, as one young woman testifies, “Just as the land is being used, these women are being used.”
Explorers and amateur directors Mariana Ianovska and Viktor Posnov embark on a 40 day long trip across Umnak Island.
A Good Wolf is a feature-length documentary film examining a 40-year conflict over a single tract of land adjacent to Denali National Park—a volatile struggle between state and federal authorities, fur trappers and wildlife advocates, and competing human interests on public lands. Armed with thorough data, biologists and activists bring a new proposal to state authorities, hoping to regain protections for wolves near the park boundary. But local trappers are adamantly opposed. Hanging in the balance are some of America’s most iconic landscapes and wildlife -- including the remarkable Wolf 1202.
In this feature-length documentary, three generations of the Caribou Inuit family come together to tell the story of their journey as Canada's last nomads. From the independent life of hunting on the Keewatin tundra to taking the reins of the new territory of Nunavut on April 1, 1999, we see it all. The film is the result of a close collaboration between Ole Gjerstad, a southern Canadian, and Martin Kreelak, an Inuk. It's Martin's family that we follow, as the story is told through his own voice, through those of the Elders, and through those of the teens and young adults who were born in the settlements and form the first generation of those growing up with satellite TV and a permanent home.