Bella Bella
★ 8 · 1975 · 28m · Documentary
This documentary short is an introduction to the Bella Bella (Heiltsuk) of Campbell Island, 500 km North of Vancouver on the Pacific Coast. Since the coming of settlers, these fishing people have watched their ancient Heiltsuk culture and their independence all but disappear. Today, in an energetic attempt to become self-sufficient, they are regaining both - successfully combining economic development with cultural revival.
More Like This

The Secret World of Plants
2003 · ★ 7
The secret world of plants gets us closer to these motionless and quiet creatures, so attractive and surprising as the rest of the living creatures. The documentary reveals the most unknown aspects of the vegetable kingdom. We learn about the secret of the eternal youth of a 3500 years old sequoia and be charmed by the 'rafflesia arnoldi' flowers, able to reach up to one meter of diameter.
More info →
Colebrook: A Place of Healing & Learning
2022
Colebrook Blackwood Reconciliation Park is where the Colebrook Training Home once stood. It is now a permanent memorial for the Aboriginal children of the “Stolen Generation” and their families.
More info →
Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy
2021 · ★ 9
Follow filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers as she creates an intimate portrait of her community and the impacts of the substance use and overdose epidemic. Witness the change brought by community members with substance-use disorder, first responders and medical professionals as they strive for harm reduction in the Kainai First Nation.
More info →
Bill Reid
1979 · ★ 7
Follows Haida artist Bill Reid, from British Columbia. A jeweller and wood carver, he works on a traditional Haida totem pole. We watch the gradual transformation of a bare cedar trunk into a richly carved pole to stand on the shores of the town of Skidegate, in the Queen Charlotte Islands of B.C.
More info →
The Call of Fayu Ujmu
2002
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.
More info →
Spears from All Sides
2019
Until the 1950s, the Waorani were able to successfully defended their area of settlement – today’s Yasuni National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon – with the aid of spears. Then Christian missionaries entered the thick rain forest and paved the way for an oil company. Nowadays many of the tribes are estranged as some want to benefit from the short-term money the company is offering while others fight to preserve their land, culture and independence under all circumstances.
More info →
Cholitas
2020 · ★ 7
Five Bolivian indigenous women share one goal: climbing the highest mountain in America.
More info →
Tokyo Ainu
2013
TOKYO Ainu features the Ainu, an indigenous people of Japan, living in Greater Tokyo (Tokyo and its surrounding areas), who are and actively in promoting their traditional culture in a metropolitan environment away from their traditional homeland, Hokkaido. Shedding a common assumption that all Ainu live in Hokkaido, the film captures the feelings, thoughts and aspirations of Ainu people that who try to follow the Ainu way no matter where they live.
More info →
Land der Bitterkeit und des Stolzes
1982
A polemic against Werner Herzog and the making of "Fitzcarraldo", exploring the question of the filmmaker's ethical and moral responsibility.
More info →
Our People Will Be Healed
2017 · ★ 5.7
Legendary documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin provides a glimpse of what action-driven decolonization looks like in Norway House, one of Manitoba's largest First Nation communities.
More info →
The Paradox of Norval Morrisseau
1974
In this revealing study of Norval Morrisseau, filmed as he works among the lakes and woodlands of his ancestors, we see a remarkable Indigenous artist who emerged from a life of obscurity in the North American bush to become one of Canada's most renowned painters. Morrisseau the man is much like his paintings: vital and passionate, torn between his Ojibway heritage and the influences of the white man's world.
More info →