This film is an initiatory journey among the Fangs of Gabon and the Shipibos of Peru. With the sound of traditional instruments like the mogongo (arc in the mouth), the holy harp, and the Icaros, we discover the traditional peoples’ wisdom.
Filmed in the jungles of Peru, shaman Don Jose Campos introduces the practices and benefits of Ayahuasca, the psychoactive plant brew that has been used for healing and visionary journeys by Amazonian shamans for at least a thousand years.
Petrouchka is a young Gabonese woman who takes care of her brother who is a victim of a disability. Her love for her brother leads her to create an association that aims to help all young people who live in this situation and is now called the mother of the disabled. She proudly shares her career with her followers on social networks.
The “Prophecy of the 7th Fire” says a “black snake” will bring destruction to the earth. For Winona LaDuke, the “black snake” is oil trains and pipelines. When she learns that Canadian-owned Enbridge plans to route a new pipeline through her tribe’s 1855 Treaty land, she and her community spring into action to save the sacred wild rice lakes and preserve their traditional indigenous way of life. Launching an annual spiritual horse ride along the proposed pipeline route, speaking at community meetings and regulatory hearings. Winona testifies that the pipeline route follows one of historical and present-day trauma. The tribe participates in the pipeline permitting process, asserting their treaty rights to protect their natural resources. LaDuke joins with her tribe and others to demand that the pipelines’ impact on tribal people’s resources be considered in the permitting process.
An enigmatic presence haunts the depths of the Amazon rainforest, where an indigenous Achuar teenager has disappeared. During the search for the young man, his family decides to consult with a Shaman, who, immersed in trance, reveals that the young man was taken by the devil, but that he has intervened by showing him the way back to his home. While waiting for his return, secrets of the rainforest and Amazonian visions of life after death are touched, vanishing the documentary filmmaker’s concepts of reality.
Three friends fly from Europe to Gabon to undergo a Bwiti initiation ceremony. After ritual bathing, they will eat the root bark of the iboga tree.
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 invisible.
An intimate exploration of the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of murder in 1977, with commentary from those involved, including Peltier himself.
In the form of a poetic love letter to its nation, this short film reveals a strong community and the anchoring of the new generation in this rich culture.
Known for her intimate films, director Kim O’Bomsawin (Call Me Human) invites viewers into the lives of Indigenous youth in this absorbing new documentary. Shot over six years, the film brings us the moving stories, dreams, and experiences of three groups of children and teens from different Indigenous nations: Atikamekw, Eeyou Cree, and Innu. In following these young people through the formative years of their childhood and right through their high school years, we witness their daily lives, their ideas, and aspirations for themselves and their communities, as well as some of the challenges they face.
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!
James, giving himself 12 months before he has "a license to kill himself," sets off to the Amazon rainforest with hopes of finding a shaman who can save his life.
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.
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.
A personal, scientific, mystical exploration of Amazonian curanderismo, focus on Ayahuasca and Master Plants, their healing and visionary properties and risks, along with the Shipibo people and their songs.
In the summer of 2000, federal fishery officers appeared to wage war on the Mi'gmaq fishermen of Burnt Church, New Brunswick. Why would officials of the Canadian government attack citizens for exercising rights that had been affirmed by the highest court in the land? Alanis Obomsawin casts her nets into history to provide a context for the events on Miramichi Bay.
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.
A documentary on the war between the Guatemalan military and the Mayan population, with first hand accounts by Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.
Yellowtail is the story of a young Native American cowboy searching for meaning as his chaotic lifestyle begins to wear on him both physically and mentally. To find his purpose the young man has to reflect on his upbringing as a native to become the spiritually connect man he was meant to be.