Movies: Indigenous

Set over the course of seventeen hours, the lives of three Indigenous sex workers intersect through chance, relation, and the shared experience of familial and colonial displacement....

Guyanese painter Aubrey Williams (1926-1990) returns to his homeland on a “journey to the source of his inspiration” in this vivid Arts Council documentary, filmed towards the end of his life. The title comes from the indigenous Arawak word ‘timehri’...

A documentary road movie. Traveling across his homeland, the filmmaker explores what Yakut cinema is, and what it means to the Sakha people and to himself....

Documentary about the Holy Angels Residential School in Alberta, where hundreds of First Nations children were imprisoned....

Examines the violence and civil disobedience leading up to the hallmark decision in U.S. v. Washington, with particular reference to the Nisqually Indians of Frank's Landing in Washington....

Amá is a feature length documentary which tells an important and untold story: the abuses committed against Native American women by the United States Government during the 1960’s and 70’s: removed from their families and sent to boarding schools, fo...

A documentary film exploring an untold part of Canada’s past through the eyes of Inuk artist and filmmaker Elisapie Isaac. After facing a moral dilemma, Elisapie sets out to meet others who, like her, are “Hudson Baybies,” the children born of the mi...

MAXIMÓN - Devil or Saint 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 s...

...

This short documentary follows three Indigenous women as they practice ancestral forms of worship: drumming, singing, and using sweetgrass. These ancient spiritual traditions may at first seem at odds with urban life, but to Indigenous people in Cana...

...

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, thes...

On Canada's Pacific coast this film finds a young Haida artist, Robert Davidson, shaping miniature totems from argillite, a jet-like stone. The film follows the artist to the island where he finds the stone, and then shows how he carves it in the man...

In New France before the British Conquest, Marie, an indigenous slave, serves the local surgeon. Her daily life of household chores is bleak and alienating. The encounter with a young girl she presumes to be her child will give her motivation to unde...

From a historic genocide trial to the overthrow of a president, the sweeping story of mounting resistance played out in Guatemala’s recent history is told through the actions and perspectives of the majority indigenous Mayan population, who now stand...

An unapologetic confrontation of cultural appropriation and everything that’s wrong with hipsters in headdresses....

The Algonquin once lived in harmony with the vast territory they occupied. This balance was upset when the Europeans arrived in the 16th century. Gradually, their Aboriginal traditions were undermined and their natural resources plundered. Today, bar...

Following young Anders and his father, Dr. Grant Bruno, of the Samson Cree Nation, this documentary gives viewers unique access to the world of an autistic child, and to follow his father’s journey to bring back traditional First Peoples perspectives...

This very short film from the Canada Vignettes series documents the annual pilgrimage that members of Saskatchewan’s Métis Catholic community make to St. Laurent, a village in the Duck Lake area that became the Métis nation’s spiritual centre at the ...

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 ev...