All My Relations
All My Relations is a podcast hosted by Matika Wilbur (Swinomish and Tulalip) and Temryss Lane (Lummi Nation) to explore our relationships— relationships to land, to our creatural relatives, and to one another.
Coffee With My Ma
Delves into the captivating lives and legacy of the Horn family, spotlighting their Kanien’keha:ka roots, activism, and contributions to activism, art and culture, as shared through Ma’s personal stories and insightful discussions.
Finding Cleo
Where is Cleo? Taken by child welfare workers in the 1970’s and adopted in the U.S., the young Cree girl’s family believes she was raped and murdered while hitchhiking back home to Saskatchewan. CBC news investigative reporter Connie Walker joins the search to find out what really happened to Cleo.
Kuper Island
An 8-part series that tells the stories of four students: three who survived and one who didn’t. They attended one of Canada’s most notorious residential schools – where unsolved deaths, abuse, and lies haunt the community and the survivors to this day.
Media Indigena
A weekly current affairs roundtable hosted by MEDIA INDIGENA’s own Rick Harp, a 20-year veteran of broadcasting including APTN and CBC Radio. Each week, guests from the worlds of activism, arts, academia and beyond join Rick for lively, insightful conversation that goes beyond the headlines to get at what matters most to Indigenous peoples.
Métis in Space
Métis In Space hilariously deconstructs the science fiction genre through a decolonial lense. Join hosts Molly Swain & Chelsea Vowel as they drink a bottle of (red) wine, and from a tipsy, decolonial perspective, review a sci-fi movie or television episode featuring Indigenous Peoples, tropes & themes.
Pieces
Join Jeremy Ratt, a 19-year old of mixed Indigenous and white heritage, on a journey of self discovery as he seeks to understand his roots and all of the distinct “pieces” that form who he is today.
Telling our Twisted Histories
Words connect us. Words hurt us. Indigenous histories have been twisted by centuries of colonization. Host Kaniehti:io Horn brings us together to decolonize our minds– one word, one concept, one story at a time.
The Secret Life of Canada
The country you know and the stories you don't. Join hosts Leah-Simone Bowen and Falen Johnson as they reveal the beautiful, terrible and weird histories of this land.
This Land
How a string of custody battles over Native children became a federal lawsuit that threatens everything from tribal sovereignty to civil rights.
This Place
Based on the acclaimed graphic novel anthology, This Place is a 10-part journey through one-hundred and fifty years of Indigenous resistance and resilience.
Unreserved
A fearless space for Indigenous voices. Join Rosanna Deerchild every Friday for vibrant conversations with our cousins, aunties, elders, and heroes.
Films, documentaries, and podcasts highlighting the lived experiences of Indigenous people across Turtle Island.
Content warning: Films on this list contain scenes discussing residential schools, missing and murdered Indigenous women, suicide and police violence. Viewer discretion is advised.
Yintah (2024)
Available via CBC Curio
Yintah, meaning “land”, is a feature-length documentary on the Wet’suwet’en nation’s fight for sovereignty. Spanning more than a decade, the film follows Howilhkat Freda Huson and Sleydo’ Molly Wickham as their nation reoccupies and protects their ancestral lands from several of the largest fossil fuel companies on earth (yintahfilm.com).
The Knowing (2024)
Available via CBC Curio
In episode one of The Knowing, investigative journalist Tanya Talaga is trying to piece together a mystery that dates back 150 years - who were the maternal matriarchs in her family and how did they become so lost? She travels to the James Bay coast looking for answers. Watch all for episodes here.
Warning: This series has stories that may be triggering for survivors of Indian Residential Schools and their families. The Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1 (866) 925-4419. Available 24 hours / day.
Twice Colonized (2023)
Available via Kanopy
Renowned Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter has led a lifelong fight for the rights of her people. But while launching an effort to establish an Indigenous forum at the European Union, Aaju finds herself facing a difficult, personal journey to mend her own wounds after the unexpected passing of her son. In this “powerful exploration of cultural trauma” (The Film Stage), director Lin Alluna follows alongside Aaju Peter as she strives to reclaim her language and identity after a lifetime of whitewashing and forced assimilation.
Angry Inuk (2016)
Available via NFB Campus
In her award-winning documentary, director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril joins a new tech-savvy generation of Inuit as they campaign to challenge long-established perceptions of seal hunting. Armed with social media and their own sense of humour and justice, this group is bringing its own voice into the conversation and presenting themselves to the world as a modern people in dire need of a sustainable economy.
Trick or Treaty? (2014)
Available via NFB Campus
Covering a vast swath of northern Ontario, Treaty No. 9 reflects the often contradictory interpretations of treaties between First Nations and the Crown. To the Canadian government, this treaty represents a surrendering of Indigenous sovereignty, while the descendants of the Cree signatories contend its original purpose to share the land and its resources has been misunderstood and not upheld. Enlightening as it is entertaining, Trick or Treaty? succinctly and powerfully portrays one community’s attempts to enforce their treaty rights and protect their lands, while also revealing the complexities of contemporary treaty agreements.
We Were Children (2012)
Available via NFB Campus
In this feature film, the profound impact of the Canadian government’s residential school system is conveyed through the eyes of two children who were forced to face hardships beyond their years. As young children, Lyna and Glen were taken from their homes and placed in church-run boarding schools, where they suffered years of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, the effects of which persist in their adult lives. We Were Children gives voice to a national tragedy and demonstrates the incredible resilience of the human spirit.
Sugarcane (2024)
Not currently available via Centennial Libraries
A stunning tribute to the resilience of Native people and their way of life – SUGARCANE, the debut feature documentary from Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie – is an epic cinematic portrait of a community during a moment of international reckoning. Set amidst a ground-breaking investigation into abuse and death at an Indian residential school, the film empowers participants to break cycles of intergenerational trauma by bearing witness to painful, long-ignored truths – and the love that endures within their families despite the revelation of genocide.
Beans (2020)
Available via Criterion-on-Demand
Twelve-year-old Beans is on the edge: torn between innocent childhood and reckless adolescence; forced to grow up fast and become the tough Mohawk warrior she needs to be during the Oka Crisis, the turbulent Indigenous uprising that tore Quebec and Canada apart for 78 tense days in the summer of 1990.
Bones of Crows (2022)
Available via Criterion-on-Demand
Bones of Crows is a psychological drama told through the eyes of Cree Matriarch Aline Spears, as she survives Canada's residential school system to continue her family's generational fight in the face of systemic starvation, racism, and sexual abuse. Bones of Crows unfolds over one hundred years with a cumulative force that propels us into the future.