This short film traces Pete Standing Alone's personal journey from cultural alienation to pride and belonging. As a spiritual elder, teacher and community leader of the Blood Indians of Southern Alberta, Pete works with youth to repair the cultural and spiritual destruction wrought by residential schools. At age 81, he has come full-circle in his dedication to preserving the traditional ways of his people.
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.
Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy
2021
9
After a plane crash, four indigenous children fight to survive in the Colombian Amazon using ancestral wisdom as an unprecedented rescue mission unfolds.
Los niños perdidos
2024
7
A look at the Hutterites, an Anabaptist religious community similar to the Amish or the Mennonites in rural Alberta.
The Hutterites
1964
7
The enigma of the personality cult is revealed in the grand spectacle of Stalin’s funeral. The film is based on unique archive footage, shot in the USSR on March 5 - 9, 1953, when the country mourned and buried Joseph Stalin.
Государственные похороны
2019
6
A documentary film about Comanche activist LaDonna Harris, who led an extensive life of Native political and social activism, and is now passing on her traditional cultural and leadership values to a new generation of emerging Indigenous leaders.
LaDonna Harris: Indian 101
2014
1
An NFB crew filmed a group of three families, Cree hunters from Mistassini. Since times predating agriculture, this First Nations people have gone to the bush of the James Bay and Ungava Bay area to hunt. We see the building of the winter camp, the hunting and the rhythms of Cree family life.
Cree Hunters of Mistassini
1974
7
The film follows Postcommodity, an interdisciplinary arts collective comprised of Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martinez and Kade L. Twist, who put land art in a tribal context. The group bring together a community to construct the Repellent Fence, a two-mile long ephemeral monument “stitching” together the US and Mexico.
Through the Repellent Fence: A Land Art Film
2017
0
Nedarma (Travelling) is one of several documentary features co-directed by Anastasia Lapsui and Markku Lehmuskallio that portray the daily lives of the Nenets, Lapsui’s tribe based in the northern tundra of Siberia. The film invokes Nenets cosmology as a way of leading into a filmic structure that portrays the arc of life from birth to death.
Nedarma
2008
0
When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
Die Geschichte vom weinenden Kamel
2003
7
The Shipibo-Konibo people of Peruvian Amazon decorate their pottery, jewelry, textiles, and body art with complex geometric patterns called kené. These patterns also have corresponding songs, called icaros, which are integral to the Shipibo way of life. This documentary explores these unique art forms, and one Shipibo family's efforts to safeguard the tradition.
Woven Songs of the Amazon
2007
7
Nestled behind high mountains and dark forests lies Triberg, the birthplace of the cuckoo clock. For centuries, this cult item has been handcrafted right here, attracting tourists from all over the world. Ever since the boom of the 1980s has faded, the cuckoo clock has gradually lost its appeal and magic. And so has the place, which now resembles a ghost town. Its residents however still believe in their clock: Vendors, clockmakers and tourist guides alike fight to preserve their beloved heritage. Between abandoned restaurants and souvenir shops they hope for new tourists, while the clock continues ticking away.
Die Stadt, die es noch gibt
0
Explorer Bruce Parry visits nomadic tribes in Borneo and the Amazon in hope to better understand humanity's changing relationship with the world around us.
Tawai: A Voice from the Forest
2017
6
In the middle of June the village of Santo Antonio de Mixoes da Serra in the Valdreu region of Northern Portugal honours its Patron Saint with a very special festival. On this day the local farmers bring their animals to the church – cows, horses, dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits – to be blessed. This ancient tradition is passed from generation to generation, and today, just as hundreds of years ago, animals and people flock up the mountain roads to the church square to become a part of the religious festival. The film is about this miracle.
O milagre de Santo Antonio
2012
5
“Those Who Come, Will Hear” proposes a unique meeting with the speakers of several indigenous and inuit languages of Quebec – all threatened with extinction. The film starts with the discovery of these unsung tongues through listening to the daily life of those who still speak them today. Buttressed by an exploration and creation of archives, the film allows us to better understand the musicality of these languages and reveals the cultural and human importance of these venerable oral traditions by nourishing a collective reflection on the consequences of their disappearance.
Ceux qui viendront, l’entendront
2018
9
The people of Unamenshipu (La Romaine), an Innu community in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, are seen but not heard in this richly detailed documentary about the rituals surrounding an Innu caribou hunt. Released in 1960, it’s one of 13 titles in Au Pays de Neufve-France, a series of poetic documentary shorts about life along the St. Lawrence River. Off-camera narration, written by Pierre Perrault, frames the Innu participants through an ethnographic lens. Co-directed by René Bonnière and Perrault, a founding figure of Quebec’s direct cinema movement.
Attiuk
1963
0
Inuit traditional face tattoos have been forbidden for a century, and almost forgotten. Director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, together with long-time friend and activist Aaju Peter, is determined to uncover the mystery and meaning behind this beautiful ancient tradition. Together they embark on an adventure through Arctic communities, speaking with elders and recording the stories of a once popularized female artform. Central to the film is Arnaquq-Baril’s personal debate over whether or not to get tattood herself. With candour and humour, she welcomes us into her world, to experience firsthand the complex emotions that accompany her struggle. Past meets present in this intimate account of one woman’s journey towards self-empowerment and cultural understanding.
Tunniit: Retracing the Lines of Inuit Tattoos
2011
0
Legendary documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin provides a glimpse of what action-driven decolonization looks like in Norway House, one of Manitoba's largest First Nation communities.
Our People Will Be Healed
2017
5
The ocean contains the history of all humanity. The sea holds all the voices of the earth and those that come from outer space. Water receives impetus from the stars and transmits it to living creatures. Water, the longest border in Chile, also holds the secret of two mysterious buttons which were found on its ocean floor. Chile, with its 2,670 miles of coastline and the largest archipelago in the world, presents a supernatural landscape. In it are volcanoes, mountains and glaciers. In it are the voices of the Patagonian Indigenous people, the first English sailors and also those of its political prisoners. Some say that water has memory. This film shows that it also has a voice.
El botón de nácar
2015
6
An old, broken morin khurr (horse head fiddle) compels renowned Mongolian singer Urna Chahar Tugchi to take a road journey to Ulan Bator and the steppes of Mongolia.
Das Lied von den zwei Pferden
2009
6
At the forests of Östergötland, where land meets sea, rests the old castle Herrborum. Here lives count Magnus Stenbock, 92, according to his own ideas about what is appropriate and what is not. Film-maker Helena Nygren is fascinated by the count and the castle, and is allowed to film on the condition that she takes the role of companion lady. Over one year, Helena returns several times to take part of count Magnus Stenbock and his servants life on castle Herrborum in Östergötland. Time stands still on the castle, and in the movie Helena wants to preserve the fairy tale feeling she gets when she steps into these ancient surroundings. The count is a strong personality with strong opinions and a great interest in history. All kinds of people come to his castle to savor the special atmosphere and follow the old fashioned rules of etiquette. Helena transforms from an observer to a lady who participates in the social games on the estate, where everything moves around its own time axis.
I grevens tid
2004
9