Tracing Roots

Buffalo Soldiers, Victorio and Manifest Destiny

April 2017 •English

A look into the 19th century American-Indian Wars, Manifest Destiny, and the conflicts between Apache tribes and the African-American Buffalo soldier regiments.

Women of Today

January 1958 •Romanian

Made on the occasion of March 8, it presents a series of brief portraits of women, from various professional fields, of different ages and even of different ethnicities, pointing out the benefits that the communist organization had brought to their daily lives. A special emphasis is placed on their status as mothers and on the role of nurseries and socialist kindergartens not only in making their lives easier, but also in giving them the time they need to build a career. Another concern of the filmmaker, starting from the concrete case of one of the protagonists, is to highlight the differences between the happy present and the not-too-distant past in which someone with her social status should have dedicated herself exclusively to raising children, in hygienic and extremely difficult lives.

Saints And Warriors

February 2025 •English

Throughout the course of the Haida basketball season, leaders of iconic rez ball team the Skidegate Saints compete for two titles - defending their All Native Basketball Championship, while also battling for title to their land and waters with the government that stole it from them with the Indian Act.

Who Wants to Live Forever? The Wisdom of Aging.

February 2016 •English

Who Wants to Live Forever, the Wisdom of Aging is a one hour documentary film about the myths, facts and contradictions in the never-ending battle for both longevity and healthy aging.

The Warrior Tradition

November 2019 •English

The astonishing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and largely-untold story of Native Americans in the United States military. Why do they do it? Why would Indian men and women put their lives on the line for the very government that took their homelands?

Contrary Warriors: A Film of the Crow Tribe

November 1985 •English

Examines the impact a century of struggling for survival has on a native people. It weaves the Crow tribe's turbulent past with modern-day accounts from Robert Yellow-tail, a 97-year-old Crow leader and a major reason for the tribe's survival. Poverty and isolation combine with outside pressures to undermine the tribe, but they resist defeat as "Contrary Warriors," defying the odds.

Mankiller

June 2017 •English

The story of an American hero and the Cherokee Nation's first woman Principal Chief who humbly defied all odds to give a voice to the voiceless.

Chasing Voices: The Story of John Peabody Harrington

April 2021 •English

For 50 years, controversial ethnographer John Peabody Harrington crisscrossed the United States, frantically searching and documenting dying Native American languages. Harrington amassed over a million pages of notes on over 150 different tribal languages. Some of these languages were considered dead until his notes were discovered. Today tribes are accessing the notes, reviving their once dormant languages, and bringing together a new generation of language learners in the hope of saving Native languages.

Manlife

June 2017 •English

For over 80 years, Merle Hayden has crusaded to recruit members to the utopian movement Lawsonomy. Founded by aircraft pioneer Alfred Lawson, Lawsonomy advocates for economic reform and clean, communal living that transforms followers into a "New Species" that will benefit the human race either in this life or the next. Merle joined Lawson as a teenager and never looked back. His high school sweetheart Betty Kasch, however, is tired of Lawson coming between them. Reunited after over 60 years apart, non-believer Betty wants Merle to join her in Florida. Merle's commitment to preserving Lawson's legacy, artifacts currently rotting in a barn alongside a Wisconsin highway, has Betty worried Merle may leave her for Lawson once again.

Dolores

January 1984 •Spanish

Indian Rights for Indian Women

September 2018 •English

Three intrepid women battle for Indigenous women's treaty rights.

maɬni—towards the ocean, towards the shore

January 2020 •English

An experimental look at the origin of the death myth of the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, following two people as they navigate their own relationships to the spirit world and a place in between life and death.

Sweetheart Dancers

February 2019 •English

Sean and Adrian, a Two-Spirit couple, are determined to rewrite the rules of Native American culture through their participation in the “Sweetheart Dance.” This celebratory contest is held at powwows across the country, primarily for heterosexual couples … until now.

Skydancer

November 2011 •English

For more than 120 years, Mohawk ironworkers have raised America’s modern cityscapes. They are called 'sky walkers' because they walk fearlessly atop steel beams just a foot wide, high above the city. In this nuanced portrait of modern Native Americans' double lives, Jerry McDonald Thundercloud and his colleague Sky shuttle between the hard-drinking Brooklyn lodging houses they call home during the week and their rural reservation, a grueling drive six hours north, where a family weekend awaits. While the men are away working, their wives often struggle to keep their children away from the illegal temptations of an economically deprived area.

Sages et rebelles

March 2023 •French

A look at the daily life of midwives across Quebec.

Methadonia

October 2005 •English

Shot over the course of 18 months in New York City's Lower East Side, METHADONIA sheds light on the inherent flaws of legal methadone treatments for heroin addiction by profiling eight addicts, in various stages of recovery and relapse, who attend the New York Center for Addiction Treatment Services (NYCATS).

Gyaangee: Beyond Being Silenced

March 2023 •English

Famed Haida artist Robert Davidson carves his latest monumental totem pole and gives a rare insight into the deeper meanings of North Coast Indigenous art works.

Aitamaako'tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun

February 2023 •English

An intimate and thrilling portrait of a young Siksika woman and the deep bonds between her father and family in the golden plains of Blackfoot Territory as she prepares for one of the most dangerous horse races in the world… bareback.

Madwoman of God

January 2008 •French

This feature-length film tells the story of the passion between Marie de l’Incarnation, a mid-seventeenth-century nun and God, her "divine spouse." Fusing documentary and acting by Marie Tifo, whom we follow as she rehearses for this demanding role, the film paints an astonishing portrait of this mystic who abandoned her son and left France to build a convent in Canada, where she became the first female writer in New France.

The Four Corners: A National Sacrifice Area?

November 1983 •English

Documents the cultural and ecological impacts of coal stripmining, uranium mining, and oil shale development in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona – homeland of the Hopi and Navajo.