Os Carajá

Outback Art: The Gold Rush

A look at the recent trend for collecting aboriginal art and the issues surrounding it.

Xapiri

Xapiri is a Yanomami term that characterizes the shamans, male spirits (xapiri thëpë) and also auxiliary spirits (xapiri pë). Xapiri is an experimental film about Yanomami shamanism that was filmed during a meeting of 37 shamans at the Watoriki Reserve, Roraima, in March of 2011. The film was designed to take into account two different notions of image: those of the Yanomami and ours. Therefore, it does not set out to explain shamanism, its methods or procedures, but to allow different cultures to visualize and feel the way in which the shamans “embody” the spirits, their bodies and voices.

Uma: A Water Crisis in Bolivia

Andean communities fight to protect their water from contamination by mining companies.

The Rebellion of Memory

It became world news in October 2019 when economic reforms in Ecuador led to gas prices suddenly shooting up by 123 percent. People from urban and indigenous communities united in protest. In The Rebellion of Memory we follow the events through their eyes, as the country’s capital, Quito, descends into smoke-filled chaos.

Nostalgia for the Lake

A vision from Limbo, where the canoeist of the eternal lake floats in his boat, between sleep and wakefulness. When he sleeps, he dreams of the everyday of a parallel time. when he wakes up, the same song haunts him again and again. his boat, “ara” (time, in guarani) travels through time like a shooting star.

Revealed: How to Poison a Planet

A searing examination of the contamination that sparked an international catastrophe and the decades’ long battle with some of the world’s largest chemical companies for justice and compensation.

Sabino Vive: Las últimas fronteras.

The documentary recreates the facts in the life of the Yukpa Chief, Sabino Romero, an indigenous fighter killed on March 3, 2013, in the Chaktapa community of the Sierra de Perija in Zulia state, Venezuela. The film reflects the infinite struggle of Sabino and his people, accompanied by the social groups, in this story of truly libertarian images made with blood and fire, revealing the skein of interests that forged and carried out Sabino's murder, and the attitude Inhuman and murderous of those who made it another victim of history.

Bastardy

Provocative, funny and profoundly moving, Bastardy is the inspirational story of a self proclaimed Robin Hood of the streets. For Forty years and with infectious humour and optimism, Jack Charles has juggled a life of crime with another successful career- acting

The Last of the Nomads

Like an antipodean version of Romeo and Juliet, it emerges that Warri and Yatungka became the last nomads because they had married outside their tribal laws and eloped to the most inaccessible of regions. In 1977 the land was stricken by a severe drought and their tribal elders mounted a search for them with the help of a party of white men led by Dr Bill Peasley and one of their own number, a childhood friend named Mudjon. The film takes Dr Peasley back into the desert to relive his momentous journey with Mudjon and culminates with poignant archival footage of the elderly couple found naked and starving.

Servant or Slave

During the time of the Stolen Generations, thousands upon thousands of Aboriginal girls were taken from their families and pressed into domestic servitude by the Australian Government. They were supposedly employed as servants, but with total control over their movements, wages and living conditions, their lives all too frequently became an inescapable cycle of abuse, rape and enslavement, with consequences that echo powerfully to this day. Recounting the stories of five of these women – Rita, Violet and the three Wenberg sisters – Servant or Slave is a commanding piece of first-person testimony to a dark and unacknowledged corner of Australian history. Shot with admirable craft and humanity by documentarian Steven McGregor (Croker Island Exodus, MIFF 2012), Servant or Slave is a work of great sadness and urgency, bringing to forceful life the human tragedy of Australia's Indigenous history in the unadorned words of those who lived it.

Shipibo Konibo: A Rite of Passage

In Peruvian Amazonia, for the first time in many years, a Shipibo–Konibo community prepare to perform the Aneshiati ceremony: a time of dance, song, festive clothing, and drink—including the sacred tea ayahuasca.

Bananaland: Blood, Bullets & Poison

For consumers, bananas are a delicious and nutritious start to the day, a healthy snack and a fixture in our fruit bowls. For millions of residents in the banana lands, the production of bananas means social upheaval, violence and pesticide poisoning. Banana Land explores the origins of these disparate realities, and opens the conversation on how workers, producers and consumers can address this disconnect.

Mother River

In a remote Peruvian city, lives Honorata Vilca, an illiterate woman of Quechua descent who sells candies more than 20 years ago, with the rain will cry to the sky itself.

Our Nationhood

In this feature-length documentary, Indigenous filmmaker and artist Alanis Obomsawin chronicles the determination and tenacity of the Listuguj Mi'kmaq people to use and manage the natural resources of their traditional lands. The film provides a contemporary perspective on the Mi'kmaq people's ongoing struggle and ultimate success, culminating in the community receiving an award for Best Managed River from the same government that had denied their traditional rights.

Surviving Columbus

This Peabody Award-winning documentary from New Mexico PBS looks at the European arrival in the Americas from the perspective of the Pueblo Peoples.