Movies: Indigenous community

Men and women of the !Kung people in Ojokhoe, Namibia perform healing dances by firelight. First we see men perform the giraffe dance, and then women perform the !gwa dance....

50 years on, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy is the oldest continuing protest occupation site in the world. Taking a fresh lens this is a bold dive into a year of protest and revolutionary change for First Nations people....

In Peruvian Amazonia, for the first time in many years, a Shipibo–Konibo community prepare to perform the Aneshiati ceremony: a time of dance, song, festive clothing, and drink—including the sacred tea ayahuasca....

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Joseph is a young doctor who returned to his hometown in the Mountain Province to bury his father, an Ifugao chieftain, who was killed during a tribal dispute. While there, he discovers his rich heritage and acquires pride in his being an Ifugao. Tho...

Alifu, a 25 year-old Paiwan boy, works as a hair-dresser in Taipei and struggles between his dream of getting a sex change operation and following his father’s footsteps to inherit the title as Chief of the indigenous Paiwan tribe. His lesbian roomma...

In a dark, ambiguous environment, minuscule particles drift slowly before the lens. The image focuses to reveal spruce trees and tall pines, while Innu voices tell us the story of this territory, this flooded forest. Muffled percussive sounds gradual...

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 ...

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 ...

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Covenant of the Salmon People is a documentary portrait of the Nez Perce Tribe’s ancient covenant with salmon. The film follows their efforts to uphold this ancient relationship as dams and climate impacts threaten one of the cornerstones of their cu...

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 li...

Two Filipina victims of sexual abuse search the truth behind the finding of a renowned anthropologist: that merely a few generations ago, the Bontok Igorot lived in what seems an unthinkable utopia—a rape-less society....

Manifesto of the Pataxó tribe, with the testimony of the chief José Guajajara, in front of the Monument to Estácio de Sá, where the Tamoios massacre took place in 1567, on the coincident day that celebrates the foundation of the city of Rio de Janeir...

Barry Barclay was a New Zealand/Aotearoa director of documentaries and feature films. He is regarded as one of the world's first, and very influential, Indigenous film makers. The film The Camera on The Shore is a feature length introduction to Barry...

A stunning and intimate portrait of the Arhuaco indigenous community in Colombia. In 1990, in a celebrated BBC documentary, the Arhuaco made contact with the outside world to warn industrialized societies of the potentially catastrophic future facing...

First Nations fight to end grizzly bear trophy hunting in the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia. The Heiltsuk, Kitasoo Xai'xais and Gitga'at First Nations enforce a ban by using Coastal Guardian Watchmen, while the Raincoast Conservation Foun...

A group of people bows down as a ritual for religious ceremonies. This community shares a belief named Sapta Drama, one of the native religions in Indonesia that uses bowing down as a worshiping medium....

In an isolated community, a young indigenous woman fights for her freedom after enduring sexual assaults. Confronted with a life-altering decision, she stands at a crossroads between resisting or forging a path away from the shackles of violence....

When internationally renowned Haida carver Robert Davidson was only 22 years old, he carved the first new totem pole on British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii in almost a century. On the 50th anniversary of the pole’s raising, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auc...