Wings of Honour

A feature-length documentary from Canadian Geographic Films, and presents a powerful and emotional story celebrating the 100-year history of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). Through its backdrop of rarely seen RCAF archival footage and dramatic contemporary footage, the film showcases compelling stories from past and present RCAF members from across Canada.

2024-05-21 | en

Amazonia: Healing with Sacred Plants

Psychologist and anthropologist Alberto Villoldo talks with traditional healers of Madre de Dios, a department within in Peruvian Amazonia. They and Dr. Villoldo explain aspects of ayahuasca, a powerful, plant-based medicine of crucial importance.

2015-07-01 | en

A Minha Avó Trelotótó

«My grandma had a great strength and love for life which made me believe that some of us were able to become immortals and escape death. When she passed at the age of 92, her death was a surprise to me, which I was not prepared for. The cinema has the immense power of creating the illusion of life and its protection. This film is my attempt to rescue my grandma from death. It is not a documentary about my grandma but a film with my grandma. I wanted to film a ghost and then return it to the realm of the living, like Orfeu tried with Eurídice. It is a route to resurrection. It is my way of giving her immortality which I deem to be her right.»

2019-05-06 | pt

Mauri

Mauri (life principle, life force, vital essence inherent in all living things) The film is an intimate, visually stunning testament to a land and a people who have survived removal, exploitation and colonization — and to the healing ways that are part of the Māori ancestral knowledge. It juxtaposes the enduring trauma of colonialism with the resilience offered through Māori ancestral healing traditions.

2024-06-28 | en

Concerning Violence

Concerning Violence is based on newly discovered, powerful archival material documenting the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation in the Third World, accompanied by classic text from The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.

2014-01-17 | sv

The Crucible

Canada: A People's History - Episode 14: 1940 to 1946 CE. Canada comes of age in the anguish of World War II, with soldiers on the beaches at Dieppe and women in the industrial work force back home. The country's military role, and the domestic, social and political consequences of the war are traced through poignant stories of Canadians on both sides of the Atlantic. The horrific global conflict steals the innocence of a generation... but brings hope for a new future.

2002-01-10 | en

René Vautier, le rebelle

2000-04-29 | fr

The Medicine of Forgiveness

Benito Arévalo is an onaya: a traditional healer in a Shipibo-Konibo community in Peruvian Amazonia. He explains something of the onaya tradition, and how he came to drink the plant medicine ayahuasca under his father's tutelage. Arévalo leads an ayahuasca ceremony for Westerners, and shares with us something of his understanding of the plants and the onaya tradition.

2001-01-01 | es

Voices That Heal

Herlinda Augustin is a Shipibo healer who lives with her family in Peruvian Amazonia. Will she and other healers be able to maintain their ancient tradition despite Western encroachment?

| es

Son of Torum

In the same vein as Meri's other documentations, this one takes advantage of the glasnost policy to discuss the social and ecologic impact of the Russian oil industry on the natives and the lands they inhabit.

1989-02-05 | et

Coffee: Songs of Smoke

In the town of San Miguel Tzinacapan, in Puebla’s Nahua Mountain Range, a family lost its father. His absence transforms the lives of those who were so deeply connected to him. Tere, now in charge of the family, must make money by selling crafts. Jorge is about to finish school and will soon have to choose his own path. Chayo, 16, must make an important decision. A year has passed, and the members of the family have been able to redefine themselves, finding their own destiny while always venerating their father’s memory.

2014-02-01 | es

I Will Speak English

'An instructional film made on behalf of the Department of Social Welfare, demonstrating a new technique to teach English to illiterate adult audiences in the Gold Coast. (..) This is a film with an almost entirely African cast, depicting an African teacher instructing a group of African students, produced by a predominantly African crew. Yet, the subject of the film – encouraging the widespread teaching of English – jars with this image of a modern Gold Coast. Just as the Gold Coast Film Unit was overseen by British figures – such as Sean Graham and, in this case, George Noble – this film also endorses the retention of British influence within a new national identity'. - Tom Rice, for colonialfilm.org

1954-09-01 | en

Ameríndia - Memória, Remorso e Compromisso no V Centenário

| pt

The Call of Fayu Ujmu

A 13-year-old Indian boy is found unconscious after being attacked in the jungle by the evil spirit Fayu Ujmu. A shaman attempts to ritually tame the spirit and advises the boy’s father to capture it. This story is based on a Chachi Indian legend; it was shot with indigenous inhabitants of the jungle community of Loma Linda, on the Rio Cayapas.

2002-01-01 | de

Iniskim - Return of the Buffalo

A cinematic wonder & incredible opportunity to learn about Indigenous ways of knowing. A group of puppeteers are transformed by their experience of "being buffalo" at night under the stars. Amethyst First Rider tells the puppeteers, "You are the buffalo. With each movement of your hands, each connection, you're creating energy & they become a part of you." In 2017 history was made when bison were reintroduced to Banff National Park where they continue to roam free today. The project was part of the historic Buffalo Treaty, with over 40 First Nation signatories, who are part of the movement to bring buffalo back to their ancestral lands. Leroy Little Bear & Amethyst First Rider lead this movement, & since Amethyst is first & foremost an artist, she wanted to celebrate the return of the buffalo through art. She met master puppeteer, Pete Balkwill, who was working with sculptural lantern puppets with his collaborators that lent themselves to night time performances on the land

2024-09-20 | en

Habilito: Debt for Life

Documents the conflicts and tensions that arise between highland migrants and Mosetenes, members of an indigenous community in the Bolivian Amazon. It focuses particularly on a system of debt peonage known locally as ‘habilito’. This system is used throughout the Bolivian lowlands, and much of the rest of the Amazon basin, to secure labor in remote areas.

2010-08-25 | es

Man Who Chooses the Bush

This short documentary follows Frank Ladouceur, a man who lives alone for months at a time, trapping muskrat in the vast, desolate wilderness of northern Alberta. He receives no visitors, and rarely voyages to his family home in Fort Chipewyan. What some may consider an unthinkably lonely, isolated existence is the calling of this fiercely independent Métis man. Remarkably determined and self-sufficient, Frank makes his home in the wild bush.

1975-01-01 | en

Negotiating Amnesia

Negotiating Amnesia is an essay film based on research conducted at the Alinari Archive and the National Library in Florence. It focuses on the Ethiopian War of 1935-36 and the legacy of the fascist, imperial drive in Italy. Through interviews, archival images and the analysis of high-school textbooks employed in Italy since 1946, the film shifts through different historical and personal anecdotes, modes and technologies of representation.

2015-11-27 | en

Svonni vs the Swedish Tax Agency

A Sámi woman fights for her right to claim a tax deduction against the purchase of a dog. Why the Swedish authorities fail to recognize the dog's use as a reindeer herding tool versus a pet opens up a larger discussion about Indigenous rights and economic discrimination in this humorous takedown of the Swedish government's ignorance of Sámi culture.

2020-10-21 | sv

Eskimo Arts and Crafts

How Inuit peoples perform arts and crafts, on the island of Baffin Island on what is now the territory of Nanavut.

1943-07-09 | en