Jesse Threebears is a troubled Native-American teen who has been tossed from one foster home to the next since his mother died when he was an infant. Finally, he is taken in by his grandfather who, after a ten year stint in prison, is living on the reservation. With the help of his grandfather and...
Tantoo Cardinal stars as Alive, the mother of Jack and Samantha. Her children are learning about their past and, in particular, the Treaty land Entitlement settlement that their First Nation has just completed. This is a story that shows the path that previous generations have foretold and how they...
When an alcoholic detective fights to find a murderer targeting street workers in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, he struggles to escape the haunting memories of his past and unexpectedly finds solace within the fragile community he endeavours to protect.
Matthew, a young medical student from Toronto, Ontario, returns to his birthplace in Guyana on receiving a letter from his mother three months after her death. Prompted by his surroundings to sort through the idealized memories of his childhood, Matthew reaches the horrifying realization that he...
Lily and her three youngest children join her husband David Sutton, a doctor in an isolated northern Alberta town. Their eleven-year-old son arrives later from boarding school. David conceals a dark secret which caused the family to leave England without telling anybody. They befriend a neighbor...
This documentary, originally broadcast on the PBS series 'P.O.V.', explores three places considered sacred by Native Americans: Devils Tower in Wyoming, the Colorado Plateau in the Southwest, and Mount Shasta in California. The Lakota, Hopi, and Wintu people who traditionally care for these areas...
Based on a true story, a powerful study of the dysfunction and disorder in the police and criminal justice systems that allowed a wily psychopath to murder nearly 50 marginalised women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
How the Fiddle Flows follows Canada's great rivers west along the fur-trading route of the early Europeans. The newcomers introduced the fiddle to the Aboriginal people they intermarried with along the way. A generation later, their mixed-blood offspring would blend European folk tunes with First...
This all-Native production, by director Shelley Niro (Mohawk), is part of the Smoke Signals new wave of films that examine Native identity in the 1990’s. Set on the Grand Pine Indian Reservation, aka “Reservation X”, HONEY MOCCASIN combines elements of melodrama, performance art, cable...
A moving portrait of actress Tantoo Cardinal, travelling through time and across the many roles she’s played, capturing her strength and her impact—and how she shattered the glass ceiling and survived.
By 1929, Canada's west, which had been home to generations of Métis, was taken over by the railroads and new settlers. The Métis became a forgotten people, relegated to eking out a living as best they could. In Places Not Our Own, Rose l'Esperance, a Métis, is determined that her children will...
"Sisters Rising" is the story of six Native American women fighting to restore personal and tribal sovereignty in the face of ongoing colonial violence against indigenous women in the United States. Dawn was in the Army, now she’s a tribal cop in the midst of the North Dakota oil boom that...
The Dirty Shame is the only bar in the small town of Paradise, Michigan. A burnt out, chain-smoking fortyish bar maid is the only waitress at The Dirty Shame. A group of local red necks conspiring to bring a mail order bride to their Midwest town for their ne'er-do-well leader set the story in...
