Documentary Educational Resources - Subject / Inequalities / Loss of Native Land/Land Rights / All Films

Cree Hunters of Mistassini

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

Cree Hunters of Mistassini
Buy Now: $320.00

For thousands of years, the Cree Indians of James Bay inhabited the northern Quebec forests - originally gathering wild rice, and later hunting, fishing, and trapping. Traditionally, small groups of families spent the winter months together in the bush, subsisting on moose, beaver, deer, wild geese and caribou. In 1973 a film crew joined three families in their annual move to the north. In this film we come to know the Blacksmiths, the Jollys, and the Voyageurs: building a one-room lodge floored with pine boughs, hunting, trapping, preparing food and skins, and living together in the bush.

Disclaimer on Naming:
Please be aware that this documentary may include outdated or potentially offensive language. Such terms are not endorsed by DER but are presented in their original context to promote awareness, education, and discussion. Learn more about DER’s efforts to use reparative language and honor the preferred names of Indigenous communities by clicking here.

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Dinka Diaries

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:04:00 GMT

Dinka Diaries
Buy Now: $320.00

Dinka Diaries tells the story of some of America's most recent arrivals: Sudanese refugees who would have never dreamt a few years ago that they'd be living in America. Over the course of ten months, the film follows the lives of three Sudanese refugees who resettle in the Philadelphia area and adjust to the new American culture and way of life.

Dinka Diaries represents an important attempt to empower refugees by giving them the opportunity to represent themselves and their experiences through film.

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The First Contacts

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

The First Contacts
Buy Now: $295.00

With the colonization of Brazil's mid-West in the 1950s and the construction of the Transamazônica and other highways in the 1970s, whites began to make large-scale contact with Indians, with disastrous results. Epidemics decimated populations of groups such as the Cinta-Larga, with the deaths amounting in some cases to veritable genocide. Groups of Indians were separated from relatives, their land parceled out to settlers under the auspices a colonial mythology that advocated "progress" over the rights of indigenous people. Archive footage shows the "pacification" of the Xavantes People, the Cinta Larga People in Rondônia, and the Parakanas in the south of Pará, and how this catastrophic contact decimated these populations. Even into the year 2000, a FUNAI crew works to find small, still-isolated groups that might be under threat from farmers and prospectors. In this video, the last survivor of an annihilated people refuses to make contact.

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A Frontier Conversation

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:52:00 GMT

A Frontier Conversation
Buy Now: $320.00

A fascinating journey through the Top End of Australia to explore what history means to the traditional landowners.

A Frontier Conversation documents a unique collaboration between indigenous and white historians from Australia and North America. In September 2004, a diverse group travelled through the Top End of Australia meeting representatives of the traditional landowners, and engaging in a dialogue about indigenous history. The themes that emerged raised more questions than answers - from cultural appropriation and copyright, to land rights, the role of language and art, and what history means to indigenous communities in the current climate of cultural reclamation and survival. Narrated by Professor Ann McGrath, Director of the Australian Centre for Indigenous History at the Australian National University, A Frontier Conversation is a fascinating and thought-provoking account of a journey that breaks away from "the History Wars" and signals the first step in a new approach to the study of frontier history.

"A Frontier Conversation asks intriguing questions, and has some unexpected answers. At one level, it's a very simple and watchable film about a group of historians from Australia and the United States visiting Indigenous people in the Northern Territory, and talking with them about the importance of history. As the film progresses, we realise that its concerns are not simple at all. They are nothing less than the complex problem of the very different uses that history is put to in different cultural settings, and its varied meanings and consequences as a result. The film asks some difficult questions: such as how valuable can histories written by outsiders to any community be? What are the responsibilities of the historian, Indigenous or not, to the people whose stories he or she attempts to tell?"
— Ann Curthoys, Manning Clark Professor of History, Australian National University

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Indian Self-Rule

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 12:45:00 GMT

Indian Self-Rule
Buy Now: $320.00

"When the 20th century began, most Americans who thought about Indians at all did so in the past tense. Like a photograph, the image and culture of Indian people were frozen in time. Yet for Indians, the 20th century was a time of recovery. Instead of a photograph, Indian life and culture was more like a motion picture, and the story line or plot moved on..."

— Roger Buffalohead, Historian

After centuries of struggle, the Indians of North America own less than 2% of the land settled by their ancestors. Indian Self-Rule traces the history of white-Indian relations from nineteenth century treaties through the present, as tribal leaders, historians, teachers, and other Indians gather at a 1983 conference organized to reevaluate the significance of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

The experiences of the Flathead Nation of Montana, the Navajo Nation of the Southwest, and the Quinault people of the Olympic Peninsula illustrate some of the ways Indians have dealt with shifting demands imposed upon them, from allotment to reorganization to termination and relocation. Particularly eloquent are Indian reflections upon the difficulties of maintaining cultural identities in a changing world and within a larger society that views Indians with ambivalence.

"Society wants...Indians to be like everyone else; and yet...wants Indians to be Indians."
— Sam Deloria, Director of the American Indian Law Center

Disclaimer on Naming:

Please be aware that this documentary may include outdated or potentially offensive language. Such terms are not endorsed by DER but are presented in their original context to promote awareness, education, and discussion. Learn more about DER’s efforts to use reparative language and honor the preferred names of Indigenous communities by clicking here.

Visit Loss of Native Land/Land Rights to see additional products in this category.

It's Now or Never!

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 12:45:00 GMT

It's Now or Never!
Buy Now: $295.00

In April 1997, the Makuxi Indians of North Roraima commemorate their struggle to have their land holdings recognized by the Brazilian government. Through testimonials, skits and animation, they re-create a history of forced labor and exploitation at the hands of whites.

Miners brought alcohol and disease to the indigenous community, but the Makuxi fought back. Through brave demonstrations and other tactics, they eventually regained their rights and land. Visitors and journalists witness this history lesson, and so do a new generation of Makuxi children, who are learning how vital it is to protect their cultural heritage.

Films in the Conflicts in the Amazon series

Free-For-All In Sararé

It's Now or Never!

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A Kalahari Family, Part I

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:12:00 GMT

A Kalahari Family, Part I
Buy Now: $340.00

A Far Country tells the story of the Marshall family's encounter with a group of Ju/hoansi "Bushmen" in the Kalahari Desert. In 1951, the Marshall family set out to document the life of the Bushmen of the Kalahari. After a week of hard travel in desert-adapted vehicles, they met Toma Tsamkxao and his Ju/'hoan band in Nyae Nyae. In their own words, Toma's extended family describes how they survive by gathering bush foods and hunting game. Thus begins a relationship between the Ju/'hoansi and the Marshalls that will last over half a century.

About A Kalahari Family

A Kalahari Family is a five-part, six-hour series documenting 50 years in the lives of the Ju/'hoansi of southern Africa, from 1951 to 2000. These once independent hunter-gatherers experience dispossession, confinement to a homeland, and the chaos of war. Then as hope for Namibian independence and the end of apartheid grows, Ju/'hoansi fight to establish farming communities and reclaim their traditional lands. Through depiction of their efforts of the Ju/hoansi to participate as farmers in the contemporary economy and advocate for their rights to do so, the series challenges stereotypes of primitive and unchanging "bushmen."

The five films in the series are:

Part One: A Far Country
Part Two: End Of the Road
Part Three: Real Water
Part Four: Standing Tall
Part Five: Death By Myth

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Best Environmental TVSeries,FICA - International Festival of Environmental Film & Video, Brazil, 2003

Special Prize: Homage tothe Films of John Marshall; Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, 2003

Grand Jury Award, Best inWorld Cinema, DC Independent Film Festival, Washington DC, 2003

Basil Wright FilmPrize, RAI 8th Ethnographic Film Festival, England, 2003

Jury Award, Athens FilmFestival, 2003

EnvironmentalAnthropology Prize, CineEco Festival, Portugal, 2003

Best Film, Jury Award, XII InternationalFestival of Ethnographical Films, Nuoro, Italy, 2004

Visitthe A Kalahari Family Microsite for more detailed information.

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A Kalahari Family, Part II

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:12:00 GMT

A Kalahari Family, Part II
Buy Now: $340.00

It is 1978, and in End of the Road, John Marshall is reunited with Toma's family. Like a majority of Ju/'hoansi, they have settled at Tjum!kui, an administrative post run by the South African government. They came looking for water, jobs and an easier life, but found poverty, malnutrition and violence. Desperate for a more stable existence, the family heads back to their traditional water hole, /Aotcha, with shovels, cattle, and plans to start farming.

About A Kalahari Family

The five films in the series are:

Part One: A Far Country
Part Two: End Of the Road
Part Three: Real Water
Part Four: Standing Tall
Part Five: Death By Myth

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Best Environmental TV Series, FICA - International Festival of Environmental Film & Video, Brazil, 2003

Special Prize: Homage to the Films of John Marshall; Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, 2003

Grand Jury Award, Best in World Cinema, DC Independent Film Festival, Washington DC, 2003

Basil Wright Film Prize, RAI 8th Ethnographic Film Festival, England, 2003

Jury Award, Athens Film Festival, 2003

Environmental Anthropology Prize, CineEco Festival, Portugal, 2003

Best Film, Jury Award, XII International Festival of Ethnographical Films, Nuoro, Italy, 2004

Visit the A Kalahari Family Microsite for more detailed information.

Visit Loss of Native Land/Land Rights to see additional products in this category.

A Kalahari Family, Part III

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:12:00 GMT

A Kalahari Family, Part III
Buy Now: $340.00

Ju/'hoan farming communities multiply during the 1980s only to face a new threat. The Department of Nature Conservation wants to create a game reserve on Ju/'hoan territory. People will be forbidden to raise livestock or crops. Instead, Ju/'hoansi will be encouraged to act like "Bushmen" and hunt for the amusement of tourists. Urgent grass roots organizing ensues as the people seek to control their traditional lands.

About A Kalahari Family

The five films in the series are:

Part One: A Far Country
Part Two: End Of the Road
Part Three: Real Water
Part Four: Standing Tall
Part Five: Death By Myth

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Best Environmental TV Series, FICA - International Festival of Environmental Film & Video, Brazil, 2003

Special Prize: Homage to the Films of John Marshall; Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, 2003

Grand Jury Award, Best in World Cinema, DC Independent Film Festival, Washington DC, 2003

Basil Wright Film Prize, RAI 8th Ethnographic Film Festival, England, 2003

Jury Award, Athens Film Festival, 2003

Environmental Anthropology Prize, CineEco Festival, Portugal, 2003

Best Film, Jury Award, XII International Festival of Ethnographical Films, Nuoro, Italy, 2004

Visit the A Kalahari Family Microsite for more detailed information.

Visit Loss of Native Land/Land Rights to see additional products in this category.

A Kalahari Family, Part IV

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:12:00 GMT

A Kalahari Family, Part IV
Buy Now: $340.00

After twelve decades of colonial rule, South West Africa is about to become the independent nation of Namibia and people are looking forward to democratic rule. Members of the newly formed, Ju/'hoan Farmers' Co-op travel throughout white ranching districts and black ethnic homelands to find long-lost relatives. Following Namibia's first national elections, United Nation troops help relocate these families to traditional Ju/'hoan territory.

About A Kalahari Family

The five films in the series are:

Part One: A Far Country
Part Two: End Of the Road
Part Three: Real Water
Part Four: Standing Tall
Part Five: Death By Myth

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Best Environmental TV Series, FICA - International Festival of Environmental Film & Video, Brazil, 2003

Special Prize: Homage to the Films of John Marshall; Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, 2003

Grand Jury Award, Best in World Cinema, DC Independent Film Festival, Washington DC, 2003

Basil Wright Film Prize, RAI 8th Ethnographic Film Festival, England, 2003

Jury Award, Athens Film Festival, 2003

Environmental Anthropology Prize, CineEco Festival, Portugal, 2003

Best Film, Jury Award, XII International Festival of Ethnographical Films, Nuoro, Italy, 2004

Visit the A Kalahari Family Microsite for more detailed information.

Visit Loss of Native Land/Land Rights to see additional products in this category.