Social & External
The people behind it
Marcel Jourdain
As the name of this short film promises, a filmmaker (Merata Mita), a cook (Anne Thorp) and a singer (Moana Maniapoto) sit down for an interview at Pākiri beach. With a focus on their personal lives, these highly accomplished wahine Māori are generous in sharing what motivates and challenges them in their mahi — with friendship a recurring theme. Filmed a year after the disbanding of her group Moana and the Moahunters, Maniapoto is particularly vulnerable in her reflections. The film was made by Honours student Sam Cruickshank as part of a Film and Media Studies degree at Auckland University.
The fourth film in Alanis Obomsawin's landmark series on the Oka crisis uses a single, shameful incident as a lens through which to examine the region's long history of prejudice and injustice against the Mohawk population.
This documentary is comprised of three shorts: 'El Afinque de Marín' that follows the musicians of the group Madera. 'Yo hablo a Caracas' about an indigenous leader and his reply to the authorities of the venezuelan goverment regarding the violations towards his people and finally 'Mayami Nuestro' chronicles the relationship of venezuelans during the eighties with the city of Miami.
Following filmmaker Taye Alvis as he looks to reconnect to his community of Walpole Island First Nation. Taye will explore his relationship to Walpole Island, and how one can reconnect to their traditions and culture by way of conversation, arts, and recreation.
Nitassinan is a feature-length documentary that bears witness to the Innu people and affirms our history—past, present, and future. The film testifies to our vitality, our resilience, and the unbreakable bond that unites us to the land. Because Nitassinan is not only the place we come from; it is a living part of ourselves. It has nourished our language, inspired our thoughts, and guided our steps. This film is a message of love for our territory, which saw our birth and which still accompanies us today, even in our dreams.
A compelling study of the Hopi that captures their deep spirituality and reveals their integration of art and daily life. Amidst beautiful images of Hopi land and life, a variety of Hopi — a farmer, a religious elder, a grandmother, a painter, a potter, and a weaver — speak about the preservation of the Hopi way. Their philosophy of living in balance and harmony with nature is a model to the Western world of an environmental ethic in action.
'Falas da Terra' sheds light on the plurality and the struggle of the indigenous people for the right to exist, in a historical rescue of valuing their cultures.
Focused on an inspiring and touching dialogue between Gilles Vigneault and Fred Pellerin, the documentary tells the story of Quebec by digging deep into an ancestral tradition etched into our cultural DNA: the production of maple syrup.
This short documentary depicts the formation in 1959 of the first successful co-operative in an Inuit community in Northern Québec. The film describes how, with other Inuit of the George River community, the Annanacks formed a joint venture that included a sawmill, a fish-freezing plant and a small boat-building industry.
In 1974 a group of Mohawk Indians occupied a defunct girls camp in New York's Adirondack mountains and established a community they called Ganienkeh. Aiming to practice a more traditional lifestyle, and asserting aboriginal title to the land, they stayed for three years, having occasional violent clashes with the local residents. In 1977 they negotiated a (somewhat complicated) land swap with the State, and agreed to move to a permanent home near Plattsburgh, New York, where they remain today. Ganienkeh is one of the only examples of an indigenous people successfully reclaiming land from the United States, but it may not be the last.
Seas the Day: The Sailing Movie is a genre-defying documentary that blends real-world adventure with deeply human storytelling. It transcends typical sailing documentaries by blending docu-fiction with a narrative inspired by Joseph Campbell’s classic The Hero's Journey. Directed by Ryan Luskin, an anthropologist and teacher, the film follows his family's quest across sixteen countries, learning life skills from diverse cultures.
In this short documentary, a Musqueam elder rediscovers his Native language and traditions in the city of Vancouver, in the vicinity of which the Musqueam people have lived for thousands of years. Writing the Land captures the ever-changing nature of a modern city - the glass and steel towers cut against the sky, grass, trees and a sudden flash of birds in flight and the enduring power of language to shape perception and create memory.
During the summer of 2022, eight teenagers and young adults from Kuujjuaq, Kangiqsualujjuaq and Kangirsuk took part in a two-week kayaking adventure.
María is an Amorúa girl; an indigenous group that traveled the savannas of Orinoquía as nomads. She lives with her grandmother Matilde, her sister diana and her cousins in Puerto Carreño, in the Colombia-Venezuela border. The amorúa are considered wild and are not literate. Matilde wants her granddaughters to learn to write and read to live better in this town of "rational whites" as they call us. The director follows María's life for 8 years from her childhood to her adolescence and invites her to travel the places her grandma did as a nomad.
Since colonial times, the indigenous people of the Andean mountains have ascended to peaks that reach 5,200 meters above sea level. There, they crush gigantic blocks of ice that carry on their backs to sell them later in the fairs of Riobamba and Guaranda. The film shows the living conditions of the communities that live from this activity.
Matimekush is landlocked in the former mining town of Schefferville, 700 km north of Sept-Îles. It was founded in the 1950s, when the Canadian government and Iron Or forced the Innu to settle down. In Canada’s Far North, there is a dire labour shortage. At Kanatamat School, the heart of the community, most of the high school teachers are from Africa.
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
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
Bastien is twenty years old and has been an activist for five years in the main extreme right party. When the presidential campaign begins, he's invited by his superior to commit even further. Initiated into the art of decking himself out like a politician, he starts to dream of a career, but old demons surge forth...
The Captains is a feature-length documentary film written and directed by William Shatner. The film follows Shatner as he interviews the other actors who have portrayed starship captains in the Star Trek franchise.
The incomparable Bruce Springsteen performs his critically acclaimed latest album and muses on life, rock, and the American dream, in this intimate and personal concert film co-directed by Thom Zimny and Springsteen himself.
This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier—iconic actor, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry, and more.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
Filmed at the end of Taylor Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour in Vancouver, B.C., this complete, in-depth 45-song concert includes the complete 'The Tortured Poets Department' set and special mashups.
Over 35 years after Bob Lazar's revelations, this documentary exposes secrets of a facility the government still denies. Featuring Lazar's testimony, recreations, and new evidence, it reopens a case that continues to spark global curiosity
A look at the origins, history and conspiracies behind the "Majestic 12", a clandestine group of military and corporate figureheads charged with reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology.
While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, director Bryan Fogel connects with renegade Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov—a pillar of his country’s “anti-doping” program. Over dozens of Skype calls, urine samples, and badly administered hormone injections, Fogel and Rodchenkov grow closer despite shocking allegations that place Rodchenkov at the center of Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program.
A new documentary by filmmaker-photographer Raymond Depardon – where justice and psychiatry meet.
This documentary revisits the French football team's controversial 2010 World Cup and the bus strike that sparked global headlines and national outrage.
RETURN tells the story of a retired Green Beret who embarks on a healing journey from Montana to Vietnam. There he retraces his steps, shares his wartime experiences with his son, treats his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and seeks out the mountain tribespeople he once lived with and fought alongside as a Special Forces officer.
Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
A behind-the-scenes documentary about the recording of Aretha Franklin's best-selling album finally sees the light of day more than four decades after the original footage was shot.
A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.
Alex Gibney explores the charged issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, following a trail from the first known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States and all way to the Vatican.
In 1997, Louis Theroux made a documentary about the world of male porn performers in Los Angeles. 15 years later, he returns to find a business struggling with the deluge of free porn on the internet. Louis revisits some of the original programme's contributors as well as meeting the latest crop of porn performers dreaming of porn stardom.
