Mother Earth’s Inner Organs (2022)

Atik, gardien du territoire

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Namibia: The Spirit of Wilderness

With more than 300 days a year, the sun dominates this country so much that it’s even shining from their flag. It’s a barren land, sometimes it’s like it’s from another planet but still familiar. It is land of contrasts and colours with wide landscapes and fascinating deserts. Influenced by various cultures during colonization and now reborn from the shadows of Apartheid in 1990, Namibia gives a beautiful collage of culture, language, art, music and food. Everyone who loves an adventure should travel to Namibia, the precious corner of our world full of incredible natural wonders. The experience of endless landscapes and an unparalleled blaze of colour make Namibia unforgettable. NAMIBIA – THE SPIRIT OF WILDERNESS invites you on a trip whose fascination will never let you go: From the Namib Desert over the breath-taking Fish River Canyon to the spectacular Etosha National Park where you will see wild elephants, antelopes, giraffes, zebras and lions.

The Orchards

In 2015, in Damascus, the Basateen al-Razi district and its orchards were razed to the ground as punishment for the population's uprising against the regime. Having lost everything, two former residents recall their neighborhood.

Matimekush

Matimekush is landlocked in the former mining town of Schefferville, 700 km north of Sept-Îles. It was founded in the 1950s, when the Canadian government and Iron Or forced the Innu to settle down. In Canada’s Far North, there is a dire labour shortage. At Kanatamat School, the heart of the community, most of the high school teachers are from Africa.

Trick or Treaty?

Legendary Canadian documentarian Alanis Obomsawin digs into the tangled history of Treaty 9 — the infamous 1905 agreement wherein First Nations communities relinquished sovereignty over their traditional territories — to reveal the deceptions and distortions which the document has been subjected to by successive governments seeking to deprive Canada’s First Peoples of their lands.

Maximón: Devil or Saint

MAXIMÓN - Devil or Saint is a documentary about the controversial Maya deity, also known as San Simon or the drinking and smoking saint of Guatemala. He is a mixture of ancient Maya beliefs and Christianity. The movie concentrates on the people who surround Maximón with their strong personalities, opinions and faith. The documentary gives us a rare view into the rituals and fiestas honoring Maximón. The cult of Maximón is flourishing because he performs miracles. He is also feared and despised because he is used to cast curses that can result in death. Ultimately, Maximón transcends the duality of good and evil, reflecting the Maya cosmovision in which everything in the universe co-exists.

Baraka

A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.

Stories Are in Our Bones

In this layered short film, filmmaker Janine Windolph takes her young sons fishing with their kokum (grandmother), a residential school survivor who retains a deep knowledge and memory of the land. The act of reconnecting with their homeland is a cultural and familial healing journey for the boys, who are growing up in the city. It’s also a powerful form of resistance for the women.

Invasion

In this era of "reconciliation", Indigenous land is still being taken at gunpoint. INVASION is a new film about the Unist'ot'en Camp, Gidimt'en checkpoint, and the Wet'suwet'en Nation standing up to the Canadian government and corporations who continue colonial violence against indigenous people.

Piripkura

The last two surviving members of the Piripkura people, a nomadic tribe in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, struggle to maintain their indigenous way of life amidst the region's massive deforestation. Living deep in the rainforest, Pakyî and Tamandua live off the land relying on a machete, an ax, and a torch lit in 1998.

Nuuca

In this evocative meditation, a disturbing link is made between the resource extraction industries’ exploitation of the land and violence inflicted on Indigenous women and girls. Or, as one young woman testifies, “Just as the land is being used, these women are being used.”

maɬni—towards the ocean, towards the shore

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.

Homeland Nature

Home is where we grow up or settle permanently. And this home is always shaped by nature. Today, we human beings change and shape this more than any law of nature. HEIMAT NATUR is a visually stunning journey through the nature of our homeland, from the peaks of the Alps to the coasts and the depths of the North and Baltic Seas. In between is a cinematic foray through steaming forests, shimmering moors, over rose-blossoming heaths and the colorful cultural landscape around our villages and towns. In extraordinary images this nature is shown from its most beautiful side, examining the state of the native habitats. Slow-motion and time-lapse photography as well as intimate shots of familiar and unfamiliar species, some filmed for the first time, making the film a cinematic nature experience for the whole family.

Namatjira Project

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.

Ketwajê

The Mentuwajê Guardians of Culture (a group of young Krahô filmmakers) invite the Beture Collective (Mebêngôkre-Kayapó) to visit their village and attend the Kêtwajê festival – an important initiation ritual that has not taken place for ten years. Over the course of several days, children and adolescents undergo various “tests” to transform into adult warriors, under the watchful and shared gaze of the local filmmakers and the Mebêngôkre-Kayapó guests.

Still We Rise

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.

IJswee

IJswee is a documentary film about an ice club, a village and the warm winters. In the film we follow Oringers, the inhabitants of Odoorn, through the winter. The Oringers all experience IJswee in their own way. You will also see the Icecounter (Rafael van der Ziel), who builds ice sculptures and drinks frozen milk. You see the Drenthe countryside changing with the weather. You see animations, archive material and you hear the mysterious sounds of IJswee in the music of Wietse de Haan. And there are two trumpet players, who welcome winter with their music and say goodbye to it.

Aitamaako'tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun

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.

My Foreign Land

For the Suruí, an indigenous people in western Brazil, there was a lot at stake in the 2022 presidential elections. Under incumbent President Bolsonaro, logging and mining companies were given free rein in their territory. His opponent Lula, on the other hand, pledged to protect the Amazon and uphold Indigenous rights. Tribal leader Almir and his daughter, the young activist Txai Suruí, are each followed during their campaign in the final month before the elections. While Txai travels abroad to raise awareness about the destruction of the rainforest, Almir campaigns across the state of Rondônia, seeking support for his congressional bid.

Spectre

'I found a nice place. I wanted to share it.'

Hunters and Bombers

The hunters are the Innu people and the bombers are the air forces of several NATO countries, which conduct low-level flights over the Innu's hunting terrain. The impact of the jets is hotly debated by peace groups, Indigenous people, environmentalists and the military. But what is often overlooked are the many complex changes underway in Innu society, as social and technological changes confront a traditional hunting culture.

Limbs of Sun

A journey into time, landscape and consciousness: The Southwestern United States in the black-and-white moving images and unsettling instrumental music. Entropy of the American dream.

Life of Ivanna

A sensitive and intimate portrait of Ivanna, a nomadic reindeer herder in the Russian Arctic and mother of five small kids. Ivanna is forced to leave the traditional way of life and emigrate to the city, following her own dreams, due to the quickly deteriorating conditions of life in the tundra. We follow her life for several years.

A Bear Named Jesus

At Archer’s Aunty Gladys’ funeral, he hears a tap on the window — it’s a bear named Jesus, who has come for Archer’s mom. “A Bear Named Jesus” is an allegory for religious interference, with an aching yet humorous look at estrangement and mourning for the loss of someone still living.

We Will Speak

The Cherokee language is deeply tied to Cherokee identity; yet generations of assimilation efforts by the U.S. government and anti-Indigenous stigmas have forced the Tri-Council of Cherokee tribes to declare a State of Emergency for the language in 2019. While there are 430,000 Cherokee citizens in the three federally recognized tribes, fewer than an estimated 2,000 fluent speakers remain—the majority of whom are elderly. The covid pandemic has unfortunately hastened the course. Language activists, artists, and the youth must now lead the charge of urgent radical revitalization efforts to help save the language from the brink of extinction.

Yuxweluptun: Man of Masks

This short documentary serves as a portrait of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, one of Canada's most important painters. We meet him at the Bisley Rifle Range in Surrey, England, where he's literally shooting the Indian Act in a performance piece called "An Indian Shooting the Indian Act." It's in protest of the ongoing effects of the Act's legislation on Indigenous people. We then follow him back to Canada, for interviews with the artist and a closer look at his work.

Freedom Road: Women / Ikwewag

Shoal Lake 40 women talk about their struggles, and those of their parents and grandparents, in trying to raise their families in a hazardous state of enforced isolation. Everyone in the community has a harrowing story of a loved one falling through the ice while trying to get across the lake, with pregnant women and new mothers fearing for their babies and having no choice but to make the trek in dangerous conditions. The film shows the key role of the community’s women in demanding funding for the road from three levels of government, and how their reconnection to culture and ceremony give them the strength to keep going.

Home

In 200,000 years of existence, man has upset the balance on which the Earth had lived for 4 billion years. Global warming, resource depletion, species extinction: man has endangered his own home. But it is too late to be pessimistic: humanity has barely ten years left to reverse the trend, become aware of its excessive exploitation of the Earth's riches, and change its consumption pattern.

Vistas: Red Ochre

Combining archival photos with new and found footage, this short film presents a personal, impressionistic rendering of what it's like growing up Mi'kmaq in Newfoundland, while living in a culture of denial. Vistas is a series of 13 short films on nationhood from 13 Indigenous filmmakers from Halifax to Vancouver. It was a collaborative project between the NFB and APTN to bring Indigenous perspectives and stories to an international audience.

The Song of the Butterflies

Rember Yahuarcani is an indigenous artist from the Uitoto Nation who lives in Lima, Peru. From his clan, the White Heron, only two families remain in Peru. Rember's paintings are inspired by the stories his grandmother Martha told him before she died. However, he has never dived into the darkest part of his nation’s history: the indigenous massacre during the rubber boom. Martha is a survivor of the horror and she speaks to Rember in dreams guiding him in a spiritual journey back to the jungle. He first visits his parents, who are also artists, in the Peruvian jungle. And finally, he sails to La Chorrera, in Colombia, where he confronts the past and meets other members of his clan.

Ex-Shaman

Ever since their first contact with the Western world in 1969 the Paiter Suruí, an indigenous people living in the Amazon basin, have been exposed to sweeping social changes. Smartphones, gas, electricity, medicines, weapons and social media have now replaced their traditional way of life. Illness is a risk for a community increasingly unable to isolate itself from the modernization brought by white people or the power of the church. Ethnocide threatens to destroy their soul. With dogged persistence, Perpera, a former shaman, is searching for a way to restore the old vitality to his village.

Red Fever

Red Fever is a witty and entertaining feature documentary about the profound -- yet hidden -- Indigenous influence on Western culture and identity. The film follows Cree co-director Neil Diamond as he asks, “Why do they love us so much?!” and sets out on a journey to find out why the world is so fascinated with the stereotypical imagery of Native people that is all over pop culture. Why have Indigenous cultures been revered, romanticized, and appropriated for so long, and to this day? Red Fever uncovers the surprising truths behind the imagery -- so buried in history that even most Native people don't know about them.

Dancing Around the Table, Part One

Dancing Around the Table: Part One provides a fascinating look at the crucial role Indigenous people played in shaping the Canadian Constitution. The 1984 Federal Provincial Conference of First Ministers on Aboriginal Constitutional Matters was a tumultuous and antagonistic process that pitted Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau and the First Ministers—who refused to include Indigenous inherent rights to self-government in the Constitution—against First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders, who would not back down from this historic opportunity to enshrine Indigenous rights. The conference was Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s last constitutional meeting before he resigned and the process was handed over to his successor, Brian Mulroney.

Broken Rainbow

Documentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.