Movies: First nations

This 1981 NFU film is a tour of the contemporary world of Aotearoa’s tangata whenua. It won headlines over claims that its portrayal of Māori had been sanitised for overseas viewers. Debate and a recut ensued. Writer Witi Ihimaera felt that mentions ...

The dead are coming back to life outside the isolated Mi'kmaq reserve of Red Crow, except for its Indigenous inhabitants who are strangely immune to the zombie plague....

Follows the life of Native Canadian Saul Indian Horse as he survives residential school and life amongst the racism of the 1970s. A talented hockey player, Saul must find his own path as he battles stereotypes and alcoholism....

Ten women in Canada talk about being lesbian in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s: discovering the pulp fiction of the day about women in love, their own first affairs, the pain of breaking up, frequenting gay bars, facing police raids, men's responses, an...

This documentary chronicles the story of Darrell Night, an Indigenous man who was dumped by two police officers in a barren field on the outskirts of Saskatoon in January 2000, during -20° C temperatures. He survived, but he was stunned to hear that ...

Link and his brother flee their abusive father and embark on a journey where Link discovers his sexuality and rediscovers his Mi’kmaw heritage....

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...

Cree matriarch Aline Spears survives a childhood in Canada’s residential school system to continue her family’s generational fight in the face of systemic starvation, racism, and sexual abuse. She uses her uncanny ability to understand and translate ...

A white lawyer finds his values shaken when he is paired with an angry Indigenous activist who insists on kidnapping the head of a logging company to teach him the price of his destruction....

Elliot Page brings attention to the injustices and injuries caused by environmental racism in his home province, in this urgent documentary on Indigenous and African Nova Scotian women fighting to protect their communities, their land, and their futu...

Explores the sensitive, and tense, relationship between life on an First Nations reservation and life in the outside world. When Native Canadian Silas Crow is forced to write a personal essay in order to get a much-desired job, he tells the story of ...

Atikamekw elder Cézar Néwashish continues to recount the history of the community of Manawan that first began in The History of Manawan: Part One. As Christianity and European customs take deeper root in the community – abetted by residential schools...

"Home for the Holidays" is the third stand-alone two hour Christmas special of the "Murdoch Mysteries" that first aired on December 18, 2017 on CBC, followed by a second airing on December 25, 2017 in Canada. Murdoch and Ogden travel to Victoria, B....

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 ...

The territory of Akwesasne straddles the Canada-U.S. border. When Canadian authorities prohibited the duty-free cross-border passage of personal purchases - a right established by the Jay Treaty of 1794 - Kanien'kéhaka protesters blocked the internat...

In a corner of regional Victoria exists a place of astounding natural beauty, archaeological significance and age-old culture. But the Indigenous scarred trees and artefacts found here are at risk. With the blessing of the local Dja Dja Wurrung Peopl...

Discharged from Bosnian war, Johnny carries the weight of this war on his shoulders. He left the war with a dark and frightening secret, the murder of a young boy that haunts him. But Johnny carries many demons. The death of his father, running from ...

A deep dive into the history of the Canadian Government and the Department of National Defence leasing First Nations reserves as practice bombing ranges during World War I and World War II. This documentary follows the Enoch Cree Nation's process of ...

A study of life at Christmastime in Moose Factory, an old settlement mainly composed of Cree families on the shore of James Bay, composed entirely of children's crayon drawings and narrated by children....

In this era of “reconciliation”, Indigenous land is still being taken at gunpoint. Unist’ot’en Camp, Gidimt’en checkpoint and the larger Wet’suwet’en Nation are standing up to the Canadian government and corporations who continue colonial violence ag...