Movies: First nations

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"Blockade" takes place in the mountains and valleys of northern British Columbia, at the heart of the boldest aboriginal land claims case to challenge the white history of Canada. The Gitksan and Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs claim that everything w...

David Vandenbrink seems like a healthy 21-year-old, bright and articulate young man. There is little to suggest that while in his mother's womb, he suffered permanent brain damage. His condition, fetal alcohol syndrome (F.A.S.), went undiagnosed for ...

Filmmaker/activist Melaw Nakehk’o has spent the pandemic with her family at a remote land camp in the Northwest Territories, “getting wood, listening to the wind, staying warm and dry, and watching the sun move across the sky.” In documenting camp li...

Three Kiowa boys attempt to escape a government boarding school in 1891, Oklahoma....

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...

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...

Sensationalized in the media as a high profile catfishing case involving an NBA superstar and an aspiring model, Shelly Chartier was portrayed as a master manipulator who used social media as her weapon. Through the sensitive and intelligent lens of ...

A new songline for 21st century Australia - a fresh look at the Cook legend from a First Nations' perspective - the songline tells of connection to country, resistance and survival and features the cheeky, acerbic and heartfelt showman - Steven Olive...

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....

A document of the originators of the DIY Rez Metal scene, and the bands that are now carrying the torch, including I Dont Konform, Mutilated Tyrant and Born of Winter. From a generator-powered show in the Arizona desert to a band practicing in a trad...

Narrated by award-winning actor and dancer David Gulpilil, Carriberrie guides audiences across a stunning array of iconic Australian locations and performances, from the traditional to contemporary. From ceremonial creation dances in the heart of the...

A Seminole Indian captures a falcon on its yearly migration, but it yearns to be free....

Filmed on the island of Haida Gwaii, this documentary depicts the ongoing resistance and resurgence of the Haida people and their culture against the different manifestations and trauma of colonization....

For almost a century, the Coast Salish knitters of southern Vancouver Island have produced Cowichan sweaters from handspun wool. These distinctive sweaters are known and loved around the world, but the Indigenous women who make them remain largely in...

A First Nations boy in the Australian outback adopts an injured dingo. The two of them set off on a quest to find an emu....

Legendary Canadian documentarian Alanis Obomsawin digs into the tangled history of Treaty 9 — the infamous 1905 agreement wherein First Nations communities relinquished sovereignty over their traditional territories — to reveal the deceptions and dis...

About Aborigines and Australian politics. On 13 March 1978 the Queensland Government announced its intention to take over management of the Aurukun Aboriginal Reserve from the Uniting Church. The people of Aurukun complained bitterly, believing that ...

Both a requiem for and an honoring of Canada's First Nations, Métis, and Inuit women, this short film deconstructs the layers of Canadian nationalism. In the process, it reverses the colonial lens by shifting the balance of power to reclaim the Canad...

A documentary short which follows follow Quandamooka artist Megan Cope in the creation of her work 'Whispers' and the lead up to the opening of the exhibition at Sydney Opera House in 2023....