Indigenous Studies

A collection of films by Indigenous filmmakers and directors. Search also for subjects or titles from this section of the website.

A selection of films by Indigenous filmmakers and allies about the tragic impact of residential schools in Canada.

Search NFB documentaries, films, and more to discover further collections. Films designated CAMPUS are titles that MSVU's Library has a subscription to for students, faculty, and staff.

Between the years 1955 and 1985 over 20,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and placed with white families or in foster care. Known as the Sixties Scoop, this is a story of four siblings who were separated as children and are reunited years later. Teaching and study guides are only available to the MSVU community as CAMPUS subscribers.

This emotional, hard-hitting film takes Stacey Dooley to a remote part of Canada to investigate why the regular disappearance or murder of hundreds of young women from indigenous communities has largely been ignored. Sign-in required.

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The following provided by Director, Antonio Hrynchuk:
It is estimated that over 500 aboriginal women have been murdered or gone missing in violent circumstances in Canada in the past 20 years. An Aboriginal woman in Canada is five times more likely to die of violence circumstances than a woman of any other race. These women come from all over the country, and from all walks of life and economic backgrounds. Stolen Sisters takes viewers inside this contentious issue, from the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan to the haunting depths of the dark alleys in Vancouver's dangerous Hastings district. You will hear the stories of the missing and witness one family's desperate search for their loved one.

Description from Films on Demand: "First Nation indigenous hip hop artists in Canada lead efforts to right long-standing social injustices, heal personal traumas, and preserve their cultures through the power of music. The film examines the important role that hip hop plays in transforming the lives of the musicians, their audiences, and communities." Sign-in required.

Over the course of one summer, Bruce Parry immersed himself in the lives of the Arctic's people. From the fishermen in the Bering Sea, to oil workers tapping the vast wealth of the Arctic reserve, native hunters desperately clinging on to the last breath of their culture, bush pilots, miners, fire-fighters and scientists mapping the ever-shrinking ice cap. Sign-in required.

Their ancestors having nearly erased Aboriginal culture (and the Aboriginal population as well), contemporary Australians have awakened to the treasure at the outer reaches of their Westernized midst—at the most venal level, a sure-fire tourist attraction, and at best, a window into the past. This series shows native Australians as they live today, remembers the coming of the white man, and harks back to the stories of long ago. Sign-in required.

GATHER follows the stories of Natives on the frontlines of a growing movement to reconnect with spiritual and cultural identities that were devastated by genocide. An Indigenous chef embarks on a ambitious project to reclaim ancient food ways on the Apache reservation; in South Dakota a gifted Lakota high school student, raised on a buffalo ranch, is proving her tribes native wisdom through her passion for science; and a group of young men of the Yurok tribe in Northern California are struggling to keep their culture alive and rehabilitate the habitat of their sacred salmon. All these stories combine to show how the reclaiming and recovery of ancient food ways is a way forward for native Americans to bring back health and vitality to their people.

David Begay, Adjunct Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northern Arizona University and Nancy Maryboy, President and Founder of Indigenous Education Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, invite us to understand Navajo ways of knowing. They describe a worldview that is place-based, emphasizes kinship and connection, and intimately orients the human within an interrelated and unified cosmos. Sign-in required.