Edge of the Knife

The territory of Akwesasne straddles the Canada-U.S. border. When Canadian authorities prohibited the duty-free cross-border passage of personal purchases - a right established by the Jay Treaty of 1794 - Kanien'kéhaka protesters blocked the international bridge between Ontario and New York State.

The new film from celebrated documentarian Alanis Obomsawin (Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance) chronicles the events following the filing of a human-rights complaint by a group of activists, which charged that the federal government's woefully inadequate funding of services for Indigenous children constituted a discriminatory practice.

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

In 1952, an Inuit hunter named Tivii with tuberculosis leaves his northern home and family to go recuperate at a sanatorium in Quebec City. Uprooted, far from his loved ones, unable to speak French and faced with a completely alien world, he becomes despondent. When he refuses to eat and expresses a wish to die, his nurse, Carole, comes to the realization that Tivii's illness is not the most serious threat to his well-being. She arranges to have a young orphan, Kaki, transferred to the institution. The boy is also sick, but has experience with both worlds and speaks both languages. By sharing his culture with Kaki and opening it up to others, Tivii rediscovers his pride and energy. Ultimately he also rediscovers hope through a plan to adopt Kaki, bring him home and make him part of his family

A 1969 documentary on the carving and raising of the first Haida totem pole in over a century becomes the springboard for a film that restores fullness and richness to the larger story of a nation’s resurgent identity.

In 1976, a Mi'gMaq teenager plots revenge against the sadistic Indian agent who imprisoned her in a residential school where rape and abuse are common.

Two isolated families meet for a summertime celebration. Food is abundant and the future seems bright, but Ningiuq, a wise old woman, sees her world as fragile and moves through it with a pervasive sense of dread. Ningiuq and her grandson Maniq are dropped off on a remote island, where, every year, the family dries the catch and stores it for winter. The task is soon finished. As summer turns to fall, they wait in vain for the others to pick them up. Written by Anonymous (IMDb.com)

A white lawyer finds his values shaken when he is paired with an angry Indigenous activist who insists on kidnapping the head of a logging company to teach him the price of his destruction.

Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.

Elliot Page brings attention to the injustices and injuries caused by environmental racism in his home province, in this urgent documentary on Indigenous and African Nova Scotian women fighting to protect their communities, their land, and their futures.

Explores the sensitive, and tense, relationship between life on an First Nations reservation and life in the outside world. When Native Canadian Silas Crow is forced to write a personal essay in order to get a much-desired job, he tells the story of the rape and murder of an Indian girl by a drunken thug. When the killer received a lenient two-year sentence for manslaughter, the First Nations community felt shock and anger—and tried desperately to deal with the after-effects of this lack of justice.

Stoney Point Natives assemble at Ipperwash Provincial Park for what began as a peaceful protest.

The pilot of an arctic community's candy air-drop is confronted by a visiting government bureaucrat who disapproves of the Christmas tradition.

1851, Manitoba's Red River Valley. As winter sets in, a young woman on the edge of madness arrives exhausted at the fort, a wilderness station, claiming she murdered her husband. She's placed in a cell; for the next several months, she sews while the local prefect, Henry Mullen, investigates.

True story of a former British soldier on trial for murder in the 19th century Northwest.

This equal parts survival epic, psychological horror story and coming-of-age drama tells the saga of a team of wildly talented high school girls soccer players who become the (un)lucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the remote northern wilderness. The series chronicles their descent from a complicated but thriving team to savage clans, while also tracking the lives they’ve attempted to piece back together nearly 25 years later.

Survival expert Ray Mears takes an epic adventure into Canada’s unforgiving yet stunning wilderness, covering over 1,000 miles

Lars Monsen travels across Canada, encountering wildlife around every corner.

The lives of two childhood best friends, Bill and Epstein, in the late 1890s as they flock to the gold rush capital in the untamed Yukon Territory. This man-versus-nature tale places our heroes in a land full of undiscovered wealth, but ravaged by harsh conditions, unpredictable weather and desperate, dangerous characters including greedy businessmen, seductive courtesans and native tribes witnessing the destruction of their people and land by opportunistic entrepreneurs.

Home to some of the world's best fishing and hunting, Kodiak Island is a sportsman's paradise. Made up of virtually untouched wilderness, 'The Rock,' as it's known to locals, is also frequented by deadly predators and erratic weather. Experience the struggles of three multi-generational families risking it all to make a living in this dangerous environment.

At 20, Donalda is the most beautiful girl in Sainte-Adèle. Young, intelligent, and dynamic, she has always been in love with Alexis, the log driver, a feisty adventurer whose life is a perpetual storm. But Seraphin is also in love with Donalda, and he will do anything to have her.

The chaotic and violent struggle to control wealth and power in the North American fur trade in late 18th century Canada. Told from multiple perspectives, Frontier takes place in a world where business negotiations might be resolved with close-quarter hatchet fights, and where delicate relations between native tribes and Europeans can spark bloody conflicts.

A young boy's search for his father takes him from 19th century Prussia to the wilds of the American West.

1491: The Untold Story of the Americas before Columbus is based on the book “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus” by Charles C. Mann (Knopf, 2005). It brings to life the complexity, diversity and interconnectedness of Indigenous peoples in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus. Presented from an Indigenous-perspective the series is a journey along a timeline that dates from 20,000 years ago to 1491. The origins and history of ancient Indigenous societies in North, Central and South America are interpreted by leading Indigenous scholars and cultural leaders in the fields of archaeology, art history, ethnology, genetics, geology, and linguistics.

A new Science Channel series explores the suspicious deaths of scientific geniuses to determine if their demises were unfortunate coincidences or if these gifted minds were murdered for knowing too much.

Explore the world created by America’s First Peoples. This four part series reaches back 15,000 years to reveal massive cities aligned to the stars, unique systems of science and spirituality, and 100 million people connected by social networks spanning two continents.

Four Indigenous teenagers in rural Oklahoma steal, rob and save in order to get to the exotic, mysterious and faraway land of California.

The Neddeaus of Duqesne Island is a 1970s documentary parody about a family living isolated on an island in Northern Canada.

Explore wild, wondrous Vancouver Island, where the ocean nurtures all life, from bald eagles who go fishing to sea wolves who swim in frigid waters.

Eleven Britons are dropped into the remote Northern Canadian wilderness, where each must survive entirely alone. Equipped with only a handful of basic tools, they'll film their adventure themselves. Whoever lasts longest will win £100,000