Documentary detailing the hardships of life among Alaskan Natives.
Documentary detailing the hardships of life among Alaskan Natives.
1932-07-01
0
A fight for life in the frozen Arctic!
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 gradually become louder, suggesting the presence of a hydroelectric dam. The submerged trees gradually transform into firebrands as whispers bring back the stories of this forest.
Out of love for Huskies, nature and cold winters Dave and Kristen Olesen moved from Minnesota to the North West Territories in Canada 25 years ago to create their own little universe on the magnificent East arm of Great Slave Lake. With their two daughters Annika 15 and Liv 12 and their 37 dogs, the Olesens enjoy a unique lifestyle in the wide open wilderness far away from civilization. One winter they all leave their self-built homestead with ten dogs on a two and a half thousand mile family expedition allowing Annika to run the Junior Iditarod in Alaska. As unexpected obstacles all along the trip culminate in three heavily injured dogs the whole endeavor is at risk. Optimism, love and loyalty prevail on this exciting epic family voyage.
Like a lone cowboy, Sergei passionately devotes his life to traditional horse breeding in the impenetrable Arctic Sakha; permafrost and the absence of roads, electricity and channels of communication mean that there is nobody else to rely on but oneself. Sergei is sensitive and introspective; he truly cares about his family, community and treats nature with the utmost respect. He loves the independence and freedom this life brings, despite the immense sacrifices that it necessitates, such as total isolation and being a stranger to his own children. Spectacular camerawork characterizes the Sakha horses in all their magnificence, and juxtaposes the post-soviet towns and the boundless taiga landscapes, where the cold bites through the screen.
The film follows Postcommodity, an interdisciplinary arts collective comprised of Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martinez and Kade L. Twist, who put land art in a tribal context. The group bring together a community to construct the Repellent Fence, a two-mile long ephemeral monument “stitching” together the US and Mexico.
This Peabody Award-winning documentary from New Mexico PBS looks at the European arrival in the Americas from the perspective of the Pueblo Peoples.
Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.
This documentary follows various migratory bird species on their long journeys from their summer homes to the equator and back, covering thousands of miles and navigating by the stars. These arduous treks are crucial for survival, seeking hospitable climates and food sources. Birds face numerous challenges, including crossing oceans and evading predators, illness, and injury. Although migrations are undertaken as a community, birds disperse into family units once they reach their destinations, and every continent is affected by these migrations, hosting migratory bird species at least part of the year.
Alaska... Here, in this vast and spectacularly beautiful land teeming with abundant wildlife, discover the "Spirit of the Wild." Experience it in the explosive calving of glaciers, the celestial fires of the Aurora Borealis. Witness it in the thundering stampede of caribou, the beauty of the polar bear and the stealthful, deadly hunt of the wolf pack.
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.
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.
Does doctor Jan Terelak belong to an “elitist” group of the most unethical experimenters? The Polish scientist tested boundaries of human mental resilience in extreme conditions of solitude in Antarctica. The starting point for Piotr Jaworski's documentary is the psychologist's journal. The project from forty years ago was focused on studying the mental condition of polar explorers at the Polish station. Men were in the situation of confinement, comparable to a space mission. The film reconstructs these events, referring to the then contemporary context and changes in the perception of science.
This documentary takes you on a reflective journey into the extended family of Nova Scotia’s Mi'kmaq community. Revisiting her own roots, Mi'kmaq filmmaker and mother Catherine Anne Martin explores how the community is recovering its First Nations values, particularly through the teachings of elders and a collective approach to children-rearing. Mi'kmaq Family is an inspiring resource for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous audiences who are looking for ways to strengthen and explore their own families and traditions. We hear the Mi'kmaq language spoken and a lullaby is sung by a Mi'kmaq grandmother featured in the film.
In 1999, Innu community members who, 40 years previously, had been forcibly relocated from their remote northern region of Labrador to established settlements in the province, return to Hebron to reminisce and reckon with the destructive impact the relocation had on their traditional ways of life and Indigenous identity. This film serves as a companion piece to Carol Brice Bennett’s book "IkKaumajannik Piusivinnik – Reconciling With Memories," and stands as the only known audio-visual document of the reunion of a resettled community in Newfoundland & Labrador.
Siméon Malec, host on Pakueshikan FM radio, receives Marie-Soleil Bellefleur on the air to discuss new regulations concerning salmon nets. To their great dismay, the duo is constantly interrupted by increasingly worrying calls... It seems that a lion has been seen in the community!
Some people think John Muir was a hero. Others: not so much. The Adventure Brothers hike the famous John Muir Trail (a.k.a. Nüümü Poyo) to investigate the conservationist's controversial legacy.
Greenland is the largest island in the world and the landmass closest to the North Pole. 80% of the country is covered by a layer of ice up to 3000 meters thick. Through the eyes of locals we get to know the authentic Greenland.
In Nevada’s remote Thacker Pass, a fight for our future is playing out between local Indigenous tribes and powerful state and corporate entities hellbent on mining the lithium beneath their land. Vancouver-based Lithium Americas is developing a massive lithium mine at Thacker Pass, but for more than two years several local tribes and environmental organizations have tried to block or delay the mine in the courts and through direct action.