aboriginal
48 movies and shows
Eye of the Storm
Wed, 01 Jan 1997
A documentary about Nain, a Labrador Inuit community located near the world's largest nickel and copper deposits. As commercial mining interests prepare to exploit the resources, local residents consider the potential environmental and cultural impact. Meanwhile longstanding Aboriginal land claims are unsettled.
Foster Child
Sun, 08 Mar 1987
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.
My Colour, Your Kind
Thu, 01 Jan 1998
A portrait of an albino Aboriginal teenager, her feelings of alienation while at a convent boarding school, and her dreams of escape.
When Shadows Dance at Night
Fri, 22 Oct 2021
Following her brother's death, Georgia, a young college student, returns home to her reservation only to find she's become the prey of a shapeshifting, faceless figure.
Namatjira Project
Tue, 05 Sep 2017
From the remote Australian desert to the opulence of Buckingham Palace - Namatjira Project is the iconic story of the Namatjira family, tracing their quest for justice.
Totem: Return and Renewal
Mon, 01 Jan 2007
In this follow-up to his 2003 film, Totem: the Return of the G'psgolox Pole, filmmaker Gil Cardinal documents the events of the final journey of the G'psgolox Pole as it returns home to Kitamaat and the Haisla people, from where it went missing in 1929.
Shi-Shi-Etko
Fri, 01 May 2009
Young native Indian Shi-Shi-Etko will soon be taken away from her home to begin her formal western education at a residential school, which were designed to solve the Indian "problem". Her mother, father and grandmother want her to remember her native roots and they wait for her return in the spring to continue passing down those ideals to her. In the meantime, the Indian community is barren of children.
Cargo
Fri, 06 Oct 2017
After being infected in the wake of a violent pandemic and with only 48 hours to live, a father struggles to find a new home for his baby daughter.
Jindabyne
Thu, 20 Jul 2006
Outside the Australian town of Jindabyne, local man Stuart Kane is on a fishing trip with friends when they discover the body of a murdered girl.
A Common Experience
Thu, 13 Jun 2013
A poetic exploration of the multi-generational affects of Canada's Indian Residential School system, based on the personal trials of Aboriginal playwright Yvette Nolan.
Wildhood
Fri, 17 Jun 2022
Link and his brother flee their abusive father and embark on a journey where Link discovers his sexuality and rediscovers his Mi’kmaw heritage.
Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy
Mon, 31 Dec 1990
A short film about the relationship between an Aboriginal daughter and her white mother. The daughter, now the sole carer of her dying mother, dreams of far away places, the haunted look in her eyes loaded with a sense of what could have been. Famous Aboriginal singer, Jimmy Little, sings 'Royal Telephone', evoking the presence of Christianity and its role in the assimilation of Aboriginal people. The final scene sees the daughter lying in a foetal position next to her mother, crying. Assimilation, then, can be understood as a pain experienced by both the Aboriginal daughter as well as the white mother.
Still We Rise
Thu, 08 Dec 2022
50 years on, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy is the oldest continuing protest occupation site in the world. Taking a fresh lens this is a bold dive into a year of protest and revolutionary change for First Nations people.
Rabbit-Proof Fence
Mon, 04 Feb 2002
In 1931, three Aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff, and set off on a trek across the Outback.
Thalu: Dreamtime is Now
Thu, 16 Aug 2018
An indigenous mine site worker is transported to the spirit world, where he meets the spirits and custodians of the land and learns about how they are connected to humankind, even as their sacred sites are under threat by the modern human world.
Healing the nation
Invalid Date
Healing the Nation follows community members of the Toronto-based Aboriginal Healing Program as they rediscover their culture to heal from unresolved trauma. This empowering documentary dares us to think beyond mainstream medicine and embrace Indigenous ways for overcoming mental health and addiction issues.
Satellite Boy
Sat, 08 Sep 2012
When his grandfather's drive-in cinema and home in the outback town of Wyndham is threatened with demolition, a twelve-year-old Aboriginal boy must journey through Australia's bush country — equipped only with ancient survival skills — to stop the city developers.
Sacha Runa Yachay
Thu, 15 Nov 2007
The elders of the Kichwa community of Sarayaku preserve the history of their land for the youngest. They save the knowledge of their traditions against modernity and the invasion of their territory.
Karihwanoron: Precious Things
Tue, 18 Apr 2017
Yagorihwanirats, a Mohawk child from Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in Quebec, attends a unique and special school: Karihwanoron. It is a Mohawk immersion program that teaches Mohawk language, culture and philosophy. Yagorihwanirats is so excited to go to school that she never wants to miss a day – even if she is sick.
The Last of the Nomads
Tue, 07 Jan 1997
Like an antipodean version of Romeo and Juliet, it emerges that Warri and Yatungka became the last nomads because they had married outside their tribal laws and eloped to the most inaccessible of regions. In 1977 the land was stricken by a severe drought and their tribal elders mounted a search for them with the help of a party of white men led by Dr Bill Peasley and one of their own number, a childhood friend named Mudjon. The film takes Dr Peasley back into the desert to relive his momentous journey with Mudjon and culminates with poignant archival footage of the elderly couple found naked and starving.