Film Categories: Indigenous

  • My Own Private Lower Post

    “My Own Private Lower Post” is the story of Duane Gastant’ Aucoin, a two-spirited Tlingit, as he seeks to understand how his mother’s trials at Lower Post Resident School have influenced his life. As she shares her story, he comes to understand how he too is a survivor. Haa Koosteeyi (Our Tlingit Way) is where mother and son find the strength to overcome and truly survive. “My Own Private Lower Post” won an Honourary Mention (runner-up) for best BC Short at the 2009 Vancouver Queer Film Festival. This groundbreaking video has been called “enjoyable, emotional and historic” (Whitehorse Star review).…

  • Secret Weapons

    “Secret Weapons” is an experimental animated filmic essay that tries to work through the emotional and political confusion that has shaped the way I, and many other young Queer Aboriginal artists, relate to the world. After looking at the films of Mike Hoolboom, my thoughts began to centre on the experiences of growing up under the fear of AIDS in the 1990s, and of the cultural loss and grief that has cycled through the Native community since colonization began. I divided the image into four channels to reference Hoolboom’s film “Frank’s Cock,” while also reinterpreting the framework of the four…

  • Shelley

    “Shelley” draws on the work of Shelley Niro to meditate on the relationships between nature, Western ideals, cultural production, and Native life in Canada. Commissioned for CFMDC ReGeneration.

  • Butte

    Poetic and sensual, “Butte” unfolds over the course of a day, marking the progression of time at four key points – sunrise, mid-day, late afternoon, and sundown. Filmed on the Blood Reserve in the plains and ancestral grounds of Southern Alberta, the camera instinctively accentuates dancer-choreographer Byron Chief-Moon’s deep connection to the land. The film captures images of nature and the connectiveness with the land – undulating waves of wild grass, the slow passage of clouds, pastoral, woodland thicket, and streams. The body as landscape is the central image; where the flesh, bone and muscle become synonymous with the land.

  • Byron Chief-Moon: Grey Horse Rider

    Byron Chief-Moon is a multi-talented actor, stuntman, dancer, choreographer, playwright, founder of the Coyote Arts Percussive Performance Association, and member of the Blackfoot Confederacy, member of the Blood Band. Through his art and his life, Chief-Moon’s story is one of cultural survival. Themes of his dance creations begin with his people’s traditional stories, his attachment with the land and his community, as well as the inner conflict he faces in existing within the Aboriginal culture and the wider community. He is ensuring the preservation of his native language through its incorporation in his work. As well, he’s firm in his…

  • Can You Love Me?

    Adam Garnet Jones and Sarah Kolasky combine film, video, and experimental animation to create a painfully intimate documentary about Toronto artist Morgan Mavis. ‘Can You Love Me?’ is a seductive exploration of the artist’s narcissism and insatiable need for love. The film begins by describing a poster campaign, which was launched by Morgan Mavis as her thesis project for the Ontario College of Art and Design. She posted a self-portrait around the city of Toronto on every available surface, with text that read, “Can You Love Me?” and listed a phone number. In the photo, Morgan’s pierced tongue sticks out…

  • City of Dreams

    “City of Dreams” is the story of Marcel “Bambi” Commanda, an Ojibway man from Rama First Nation. Marcel sits in a prison cell, reciting a passage from his life. The film touches on his marginalization and displacement in the urban environment, the loss of culture, language and traditions, and his attempt to regain what he has lost. A poet, performer, drummer and emerging film and video maker, Marcel passed away in 1994 just after filming was finished. Selected screenings: Sundance Film Festival, USA, 1999; International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Cuba, 1996; Figueira da Foz International Film Festival, Portugal,…

  • Johnny Greyeyes

    The eyes of Johnny (Gail Maurice) have seen more of the world than most. A resilient and brave woman, Johnny has spent the last seven years in the maximum-security Prison for Women, where she has fallen in love with fellow inmate Lana (Columpa C. Bobb). With her release date near, Johnny struggles with her devotion to Lana, the demands of her fractured family, and the difficulties that come with “freedom.” “’Johnny Greyeyes’ movingly renders the broken threads of a family torn by abuse and murder.” – Chicago Reader (November 10, 2000) “A rare glimpse into the life of First Nations…

  • Positions

    A simple and naturalistic approach to a day in the life of a two-spirit, male sex worker as he visits his clients. Positions is an unapologetic and realist exploration of sexual desire, the quest for financial stability, and the pursuit of agency over one’s own body. Audience Award for Best Short, Fairy Tales Film Festival, 2019.

  • Extractions

    A personal film about Canada’s extraction industry and its detrimental effects on the land and Indigenous peoples. This film parallels resource extraction with the booming child apprehension Industry currently operating in Canada which is responsible for putting more Indigenous children into foster care than were in Residential Schools. As the filmmaker reviews his life and how these Industries have affected him, he also reflects on having his own eggs retrieved and frozen to make an Indigenous baby.