Inconvenient Indian

With "sealfies" and social media, a new tech-savvy generation of Inuit is wading into the world of activism, using humour and reason to confront aggressive animal rights vitriol and defend their traditional hunting practices. Director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril joins her fellow Inuit activists as they challenge outdated perceptions of Inuit and present themselves to the world as a modern people in dire need of a sustainable economy.

Renowned Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter has long fought for the rights of her people. When her son suddenly dies, Aaju embarks on a journey to reclaim her language and culture after a lifetime of whitewashing and forced assimilation. But can she both change the world and mend her own wounds?

In this evocative short documentary, Inuk singer-songwriter and humanitarian Susan Aglukark weaves together stories of artistry, family, and belonging as she explores the complex cultural shifts of the last 50 years of Inuit life. Turning her lens on the turbulence of colonial transition, director Nyla Innuksuk examines the forces that shaped Aglukark's voice and how that voice is now being translated for a new generation of Inuit artists.

From ancient cave paintings to Twitter feeds and deep fakes, propaganda's rapid progression hasn't compromised its potency. Tracing its effective use by religious figures, politicians and marketers, director Larry Weinstein crafts a persuasive study of the mechanics behind propaganda. This fascinating investigation confronts us with timely questions: If we grow up surrounded by propaganda, how do we know what is true? What risks are inherited by a society tricked into their perceptions? Freedom of speech is critical to a democracy's survival, yet demagogues have consistently exploited that freedom to coerce willing supporters. Contemporary artists, including Kent Monkman, Shepard Fairey and Ai Weiwei, analyze their politically motivated work, creatively co-opting the conventions of disinformation that have permeated their respective cultures. As our platforms for spreading ideas continue to expand in a digital age, dangerous lies have never been better disguised.

The year is 2043. A military occupation controls disenfranchised cities in post-war North America. Children are property of the State. A desperate Cree woman joins an underground band of vigilantes to infiltrate a State children’s academy and get her daughter back. Night Raiders is a female-driven dystopian drama about resilience, courage and love.

An Inuit hunter camped out in the Arctic wilderness discovers that it is not just the extreme elements that threaten his survival.

In a remote Arctic community, a group of Inuit girls fight off an alien invasion, all while trying to make it to the coolest party in town.

In a small Arctic town struggling with the highest suicide rate in North America, a group of Inuit students' lives are transformed when they are introduced to the sport of lacrosse.

Cree matriarch Aline Spears survives a childhood in Canada’s residential school system to continue her family’s generational fight in the face of systemic starvation, racism, and sexual abuse. She uses her uncanny ability to understand and translate codes into working for a special division of the Canadian Air Force as a Cree code talker in World War II. The story unfolds over 100 years with a cumulative force that propels us into the future.

This animated short is a tragic and twisted story about the dangers of revenge. A cruel mother mistreats her son, feeding him dog meat and forcing him to sleep in the cold. A loon, who tells the boy that his mother blinded him, helps the child regain his eyesight. Then the boy seeks revenge, releasing his mother’s lifeline as she harpoons a whale and watching her drown. Based on a portion of the epic Inuit legend “The Blind Boy and the Loon.”

Yura Ivalu is an ambitious Inuk multimedia artist who spirals out of control when an estranged childhood friend, Sesi Ilupaalik, forces Yura to confront the trauma she’s built her career on and the identity she built as an avenue to escape.

Dr. Finn Jeffries plays a new stepmother to her deceased lover's daughter Zelly. She also took over her lover's abortion clinic that is being protested by increasingly violent "pro-lifer's".

Fearing they won't be believed, two young Indigenous women go on the run after one's defense of the other results in a violent attack against a police officer.

Whilst embarking on a lesbian relationship with the new girl in town, a Métis woman’s life is rocked to the core when her estranged mother returns.

After her mother dies, a little Indigenous girl is forced to go live with her reluctant auntie and her two gender-bending best friends.

Famed romantic filmmaker Frederick Curtis is shooting a film about Geronimo just outside the Long Horn Saloon. Frustrated with the unconvincing performances of his lead actor, he pulls another young sexy Cree man into the role. Jealousy ensues as Curtis alternately gushes over the two Cree boys as he manipulates them into broad Hollywood caricatures. A “Lonesome Rider” intercedes, teasing the action to a tragic twist, which forces the boys to take control of Curtis’ film.

When photographer Will returns home for his mother's funeral he gets more than he bargained for from a strange cast of characters on the reservation.

Group of Seven Inches borrows from the diaries of 19th century painters of “Indians,” George Catlin and Paul Kane, turning their dismissive writings on the “romantic savage” upside down and inside out. Miss Chief Eagle Testickle (the outrageous alter ego of Cree artist Kent Monkman), forces innocent naked white men to become her figure models, seduces them with whiskey, and when she’s done with them, dresses them up as more “authentic” examples of the “European male.” Shot on the grounds of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario, Group of Seven Inches subverts the subjectivity and authority of colonial art history and everything else it can get its hands on.

Robin's Hood is the final chapter in a trilogy of the adventures and histories of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle Kent Monkman, a wandering artist from the Great Plains of North America, who journeys far across the seas to study the unspoiled European Male in his native habitat. She meets the handsome Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest, but realizes too late that one can never trust a white man, especially on his own turf.