Indigenous Studies

8TH FIRE is a provocative, high-energy journey through Aboriginal country showing why we need to fix Canada's 500 year-old relationship with Indigenous peoples -- a relationship mired in colonialism, conflict and denial.
St. James Call Number: E78 .C2 E44 2012 V.1-2

Four films dealing with the Oka Crisis, a land dispute in the summer of 1990 between the Mohawk community of Kanehsatake (about 25 miles west of Montréal) and the nearby town of Oka. The dispute resulted in an armed standoff between the Mohawk people, the Québec police, and the Canadian army.
St. James Call Number: E99.M8 A195 2008

In this animated short blending past history with contemporary performance, a teen boy sits in a dingy living room idly watching television. When he sees a dance and rap program that transports him to a strange prairie land, he is brought face-to-face with his Native American heritage in the form of the mystical Red Road and a Cree dancer of the First Nations.
St. James Call Number: E98.D2 .A36 2008

Following the stories of four women, the exclusionary attitudes that divide the community and many others like it across Canada are revealed. Deer traces the roots of the problem, from the advent of the highly discriminatory Indian Act through the controversy of Bill C31, up to the present day, where membership on the reserve is determined by a council of Mohawk elders, whose rulings often appear inconsistent.
St. James Call Number: E99.M8 C58 2008

Finding Dawn gets its title from Dawn Crey, one of the estimated 500 Canadian Native women who have gone missing or have been murdered in the last thirty years. Illustrates the deep historical, social and economic factors that contribute to the epidemic of violence against Native women in Canada and presents the message that stopping that violence is everyone's responsibility.
St. James Call Number: HV6626.23 .C2 F56 2006

A fresh and long overdue 'study' of white people from the Inuit point of view. Not surprisingly, these 'Qallunologists' find the ways of white culture a bit peculiar and often riotously funny. The researchers consider their odd dating habits, their lame attempts at Arctic exploration, their overbearing bureaucrats and curious obsession with owning property.
St. James Call Number: FC106.W6 Q25 2006

PN1995.9 .I48 R44 2010 Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond examines how the myth of the movie "Injun" has influenced the world's understanding - and misunderstanding - of Natives.
St. James Call Number: PN1995.9 .I48 R44 2010

Participants in the sacred Sundance ceremony go four days without food or water. At the end of the gruelling experience they will pierce the flesh of their chests in an offering to the Creator. The Sundance is a ritual long misunderstood, and once banned - but one that is now helping to bring personal and social healing to East Coast Aboriginal communities.
St. James Call Number: E98.R3 S227 2008

Explores the impact of residential schools on former students and the larger Aboriginal community, and presents ideas for what more can be done to address this painful chapter in Canada's history.
St. James Call Number: E96.5 .S735 2008

The 2003 NFB film Totem: the Return of the G'psgolox Pole documented the struggle of the Haisla people of B.C. to recover a traditional mortuary totem pole. Despite great efforts, the Haisla were unable to repatriate the pole from the Swedish museum in Stockholm where it was housed. In 2007, however, the Swedish museum decided to return the object to its rightful owners. This documentary follows the events of the final journey of the G'psgolox Pole as it returns home to Kitamaat.
St. James Call Number: E99.H23 T683 2008