For ancient Mayans, cocoa was as good as gold. For subsistence farmer Eladio Pop, his cocoa crops are the only riches he has to support his wife and 15 children. As he wields his machete with ease, slicing a path to his cocoa trees, the small jungle plot he cultivates in southern Belize remains pristine and wild. His dreams for his children to inherit the land and the traditions of their Mayan ancestors present a familiar challenge. The kids feel their father's philosophies don't fit into a global economy, so they're charting their own course. Rohan Fernando's direction tenderly displays a generational shift, causalities of progress in modern times and a man valiantly protecting an endangered culture. Breathtaking vistas of lush rainforests contrast with the urban dystopia that pulled Pops children away from him. Will one child return to carry on a waning way of life
The Manoki people live in northwestern Mato Grosso, Brazil, and one of their main economic activities is selling pequi, a local fruit, on the highways that cross their land. During a video workshop, the youngsters decided to present aspects of their villages and the process of gathering and selling the pequi fruit to the outside world. Incited by the possibility of filming and starring in their own film, they looked for the elders in the villages in attempt to find myths about the pequi. The making of this film was a process between indigenous and non-indigenous videomakers: from the main concept and filming to the editing and post-production. All images were recorded by the Manoki videomakers.
In a continuation of her first film We Are Not Speaking the Same Language, Danika explains what it feels like to be displaced Indigenous urban.
The Blackfoot bareback horse-racing tradition returns in the astonishingly dangerous Indian Relay. Siksika horseman Allison Red Crow struggles with secondhand horses and a new jockey on his way to challenging the best riders in the Blackfoot Confederacy.
Xapiri is a Yanomami term that characterizes the shamans, male spirits (xapiri thëpë) and also auxiliary spirits (xapiri pë). Xapiri is an experimental film about Yanomami shamanism that was filmed during a meeting of 37 shamans at the Watoriki Reserve, Roraima, in March of 2011. The film was designed to take into account two different notions of image: those of the Yanomami and ours. Therefore, it does not set out to explain shamanism, its methods or procedures, but to allow different cultures to visualize and feel the way in which the shamans “embody” the spirits, their bodies and voices.
This documentary follows Dawn Murphy, or “Princess Delta Dawn”, who rose to fame in the 1980s and early 1990s and became the first Indigenous woman wrestler and the first Canadian woman wrestler to compete in Japan.
This Peabody Award-winning documentary from New Mexico PBS looks at the European arrival in the Americas from the perspective of the Pueblo Peoples.
Follow filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers as she creates an intimate portrait of her community and the impacts of the substance use and overdose epidemic. Witness the change brought by community members with substance-use disorder, first responders and medical professionals as they strive for harm reduction in the Kainai First Nation.
When the Nuxalk trace their vanished ooligan alongside a land claim filed the day smallpox arrived, their radio station becomes courtroom, confessional and conjuring ground, where an older law insists: the fish and the people return together or not at all.
As a sea nomad, Hook grew up with the ocean as his universe. Now he must make a courageous voyage to salvage the remains of his dying culture
A documentary focused on infectious disease outbreaks.
The documentary delves into how scientists, doctors, and other experts across Singapore, China, Japan, South Korea, and the U.K. worked tirelessly around the clock to combat the micro-pathogen, and the concerns and opinions of public and political figures.
Angels Gather Here’ follows Jacki Trapman’s journey back to her hometown of Brewarrina to celebrate her parents, Bill and Barbara’s 60th Wedding Anniversary. Going home is never easy for Jacki. Amidst the family celebrations she reflects on her life; her story symbolising the strength, dignity and resilience of many Aboriginal people in the face of adversity.
The Indigenous peoples of northern British Columbia still hunt and fish, using a combination of traditional ways and modern equipment and techniques where appropriate. Lumbering and trapping bring them money and goods. Their traditional arts and crafts, however, remain essentially unchanged. This archival film reflects the social and cultural values and beliefs prevalent at the time of production.
In this searing documentary, Indigenous people share heartbreaking stories that reveal the injustices inflicted by the Canadian child welfare system.
Profile of the Crow Indian Mission in Lodge Grass, Montana.
Xetá
Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.
Les sentiers culturels
This documentary started as part of a photography project about the indigenous Ainu population in northern Japan, portraying people from tightly knit communities. They feel deeply connected by their culture and tradition. With gorgeous pictures, the directors explore how different generations of Ainu reflect on their identity after centuries of oppression.