Phoenix

The Power of Activism

This film takes us on an emotional journey from sacred ground above Byron Bay to Antarctica, Indonesia to Pakistan, and is sure to light a fire under the strongest climate change denier. THE POWER OF ACTIVISM focuses on six highly spirited female activists as they are put under the microscope to ascertain the financial impact of their environmental solutions… and the results are astonishing. From shark conservation to indigenous practices, intensive farming to plastic pollution; all their ‘causes' fall under the umbrella of "climate change", but they should also fall under the umbrella of "saving tax payers hundreds of millions of dollars!”

My Death Dog

Photo poetry of Bunchanawingʉmʉ Jesús Camilo Niño Izquierdo' piece of lost feelings in the Arhuaco Indigenous Reservation, northern Colombia.

Oceanbone

A short film detailing the journey and prospects of returning the skeletons of indigenous peoples' ancestors back to their homeland.

Ozogoche

Cuviví is the Ecuadorean indigenous name for the upland sandpiper, a wading bird that has special significance for the communities living around the Ozogoche lakes in the middle of the Andes. Each year, these birds migrate south from North America. Around September they pass the Ozogoche lakes, where large numbers then “commit suicide,” plunging from great heights into the ice-cold water. A girl lives near the lake. Her uncle lives in the US, and she might be heading there herself. In the meantime, she awaits the arrival of the cuvivís, few of which have appeared in recent years. The lakes are drying up.

Las mujeres deciden

Maria, a young Spanish doctor, works in a maternity hospital in the Ecuadorian rain forest. She is shocked about the premature pregnancies and the violence women in Ecuador have to face. She meets Mishell, an adolescent abused by her father, and Yanina, a woman who decides to perform a clandestine abortion. Maria discovers that behind unintended pregnancies often hides sexual violence.

Potlatch...a strict law bids us dance

Presents the history of the conflict between the Canadian government and the Kwakiutl Indians of the Northwest Pacific over the ritual of the Potlatch. Archival photographs and films, wax roll sound recordings, police reports, the original potlatch files, and correspondence of agents form the basis of the reconstruction of period events, while the film centres on a Potlatch given today by the Cranmer family of Alert Bay.

Monumento a Uruçumirim

Manifesto of the Pataxó tribe, with the testimony of the chief José Guajajara, in front of the Monument to Estácio de Sá, where the Tamoios massacre took place in 1567, on the coincident day that celebrates the foundation of the city of Rio de Janeiro, 20 January.

The Road Forward

The Road Forward is an electrifying musical documentary that connects a pivotal moment in Canada’s civil rights history—the beginnings of Indian Nationalism in the 1930s—with the powerful momentum of First Nations activism today. Interviews and musical sequences describe how a tiny movement, the Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, grew to become a successful voice for change across the country. Visually stunning, The Road Forward seamlessly connects past and present through superbly produced story-songs with soaring vocals, blues, rock, and traditional beats.

Toroboro: The Name of the Plants

A botanical expedition in Ecuador's Amazon becomes a medium for an indigenous Huaorani community to remember the genocidal colonization it suffered in the 1960s. Meanwhile, a group of ecologists from the capital tries to stop oil exploitation in the last remaining forests where the isolated Huaoranis still live, who to this day refuse to come into contact with civilization.

Thayara

Tóxico, Texaco, Tóxico

The imagination of history in Ecuador never thought that oil, “its redeeming hope”, discovered in the Lago Agrio No. 1 well, was going to mean the beginning of the worst environmental catastrophe on the planet. Thirty years of operation and exploitation of the Texaco company, forever transformed the rivers and estuaries, the forests and the life of the indigenous communities in the northern Amazon of Ecuador.

Mamus

A stunning and intimate portrait of the Arhuaco indigenous community in Colombia. In 1990, in a celebrated BBC documentary, the Arhuaco made contact with the outside world to warn industrialized societies of the potentially catastrophic future facing the planet if we don’t change our ways. Now, three decades later, with the advances of audio/visual technology, we go back to the Snowy Peaks of Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria to illuminate their ethos against the backdrop of an increasingly fragile world.

Promised Land

Promised Land is a social justice documentary that follows two tribes in the Pacific Northwest: the Duwamish and the Chinook, as they fight for the restoration of treaty rights they've long been denied. In following their story, the film examines a larger problem in the way that the government and society still looks at tribal sovereignty.

The Story of the Coast Salish Knitters

For almost a century, the Coast Salish knitters of southern Vancouver Island have produced Cowichan sweaters from handspun wool. These distinctive sweaters are known and loved around the world, but the Indigenous women who make them remain largely invisible.

Now Is the Time

When internationally renowned Haida carver Robert Davidson was only 22 years old, he carved the first new totem pole on British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii in almost a century. On the 50th anniversary of the pole’s raising, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter steps easily through history to revisit that day in August 1969, when the entire village of Old Massett gathered to celebrate the event that would signal the rebirth of the Haida spirit.

Q'eros: The Shape of Survival

Exploration of the way of life of the Q’eros Indians of Peru, who have lived in the Andes for more than 3,000 years.

Echoes Within

“Can I be nostalgic about something I’ve never experienced?” asks debut filmmaker Pranami Koch. She has in mind her grandmother, a person she never knew who belonged to the Koches, a people in India with their own culture and traditions. In her search for connection and identity, Pranami travels to the countryside and immerses herself in the Koch community.

Writing Hawa

Afghan documentary maker Najiba Noori offers not only a loving and intimate portrait of her mother Hawa, but also shows in detail how the arduous improvement of the position of women is undone by geopolitical violence. The film follows the fortunes of Noori’s family, who belong to the Hazaras, an ethnic group that has suffered greatly from discrimination and persecution.

Train leaves two towns

In Ecuador, in a single day, the train passes from the mountainous Andes to the tropical coast. The roads were built between 1861 and 1908 to connect the country. Until this date, the two regions live as separate countries, although the roads connect them in less than a day. The film is an observational work that talks about space and collective memory.

Blockade

This short documentary follows land defenders and their allies in their fight against Law 97, a forestry reform that would have handed over the province’s remaining forests to industry. Through footage shot across multiple blockades and camps, the film shows how Indigenous resistance forced the government to withdraw the bill — a victory that mainstream media largely ignored.