This Ink Runs Deep

Follow filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers as she creates an intimate portrait of her community and the impacts of the substance use and overdose epidemic. Witness the change brought by community members with substance-use disorder, first responders and medical professionals as they strive for harm reduction in the Kainai First Nation.

Two years after her TIFF breakout in Tracey Deer’s Beans, Kiawentiio gives an equally remarkable performance in Asia Youngman’s energetic youth drama as an Indigenous teen facing both peer pressure and deeper secrets in smalltown BC.

This documentary follows Dawn Murphy, or “Princess Delta Dawn”, who rose to fame in the 1980s and early 1990s and became the first Indigenous woman wrestler and the first Canadian woman wrestler to compete in Japan.

Cree director Alexandra Lazarowich riffs off classic verité cinema to craft a contemporary portrait of Métis women net fishing in Northern Alberta.

On June 15, 2011, the Canucks’ Game 7 Stanley Cup Finals loss to the Boston Bruins sparked a massive riot in downtown Vancouver. Police cars were overturned and burned, windows were shattered, stores were looted, and waves of young people were caught up in the mayhem. From directors Asia Youngman and Kathleen Jayme, “I’m Just Here For The Riot” chronicles the aftermath of the event captured on hundreds of cell phone cameras, with the rioters outed, shamed, and their lives altered forever. From the mob mentality in the streets to similar vengeance in the online hunting of those responsible, it was a dark moment in the city’s history – one that raised deeper questions about fandom, violence, and the shocking power of an angry crowd.

Every summer, the community of Xeni Gwet’in travels 200 km by horse and wagon from their home in Nemiah Valley to the famous Williams Lake stampede to honour a 94-year tradition of inclusion, trade and relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

When internationally renowned Haida carver Robert Davidson was only 22 years old, he carved the first new totem pole on British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii in almost a century. On the 50th anniversary of the pole’s raising, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter steps easily through history to revisit that day in August 1969, when the entire village of Old Massett gathered to celebrate the event that would signal the rebirth of the Haida spirit.