Medicine Bundle

Medicine Bundle

2020 · 9 min · Documentary

Weaving together family narratives and current thoughts on the pandemic, the ethics of representation, and the nature of the sacred, Thirza Cuthand discusses a medicine bundle which was used to heal the artist’s great-great-grandfather from a Gatling gunshot wound in 1885, and her grandfather from the Spanish flu in 1918. In this film, Cuthand reflects on the ways that the bear cub spirit contained within the since-buried bundle has continued to protect her family from the trauma and diseases brought on by colonization.

Directed by TJ Cuthand

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Woman Dress

Woman Dress · 2019

Pre-contact, a Two Spirit person named Woman Dress travels the Plains, gathering and sharing stories. Featuring archival images and dramatized re-enactments, this film shares a Cuthand family oral story, honouring and respecting Woman Dress without imposing colonial binaries on them.

Helpless Maiden Makes an "I" Statement

Helpless Maiden Makes an "I" Statement · 1999

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A helpless maiden is tiring of her consensual S&M relationship with her lover, and "evil" queen. She wants to break up. An impassioned monologue in a dungeon with our heroine in wrist cuffs quickly becomes an emotionally messy ending in flames.

Reclamation

Reclamation · 2018

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Reclamation is a documentary futurism short about three Indigenous survivors left behind on Earth after white people leave a destroyed planet behind for Mars. While seemingly dystopic, this film is filled with hope and humor and looks at potential solutions for current crises.

Just Dandy

Just Dandy · 2013

MovieDocumentaryComedy

Invited to speak at an Indigenous Revolutionary Meeting, the narrator describes an intimate encounter with an Evil Colonizing Queen which led to Turtle Island's contraction of an invasive European flora.

Lessons In Baby Dyke Theory

Lessons In Baby Dyke Theory · 1995

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In 1995 when Thirza Cuthand was 16 she felt like the only lesbian at her Saskatoon high school. This turned out to be untrue, but the lack of visibility in her high school coupled with the lack of representation of queer teenagers in the 90's made her make her first video, a comedic short about teenage lesbian loneliness and trying to bribe classmates to come out with the promise of candy.

Kwêskosîw: She Whistles

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On the way to her girlfriend's place, an Indigenous woman is assaulted by her cab driver. Amidst the struggle, she discovers a deadly supernatural power that may help solve the mystery of her mother's disappearance.

Sight

MovieDocumentary

Super 8 footage layered with Sharpie marked lines and circles obscuring the image illustrates the story of the filmmaker’s experience with temporary episodes of migraine related blindness and her cousin’s self induced blindness later in life. Paralleling the experience of Blindness with Mental Illness, Cuthand deftly elucidates that any of us could lose any of our abilities at any time.

Through the Looking Glass

Through the Looking Glass · 1999

Through the Looking Glass

MovieComedyFantasy

Half-breed Alice attempts to become queen and struggles with the Red Queen and the White Queen's disapproval of her racial transgressions.

Bisexual Wannabe

Bisexual Wannabe · 1997

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A young lesbian, frustrated with a recent relationship, explores bisexuality and has an enlightening discovery.

Homelands

Homelands · 2010

A love story about the history of an interracial family's ancestors and the lands they emigrated from and migrated to. It is also a personal story about being mixed race.

Redacted

Redacted · 2025

Theo practices his guitars! He’s not very good at it yet but he’s trying.

Earth Flesh

Earth Flesh · 1997

Sounds and visuals give a “physical” overview of the Land Question, and Cuthand turns the question around regarding what it means to own or be owned.

Anhedonia

Anhedonia · 1999

Anhedonia doesn't play to the back of the church. It shoots directly to the point with poetry and images that evoke controversy in one mind set and passion in another. Depression and suicide are met head on with Cuthand's honesty. Anhedonia shocks people into opening their eyes to the source of the illness in the Aboriginal community. Statistics, split images, words and flesh meld together making this short film long on compassion, screaming out for help and recognition of the mentally ill's dream of someday having a normal life.

Untouchable

Untouchable · 1998

A girl with a bad habit of falling for older women befriends a boy lover. This video is an examination of relationships between adults and teenagers. It involves ice cream trucks and bowie knives.

13 Eggs

13 Eggs · 2022

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An original video diary documenting the director's efforts to have artificial insemination. Cuthand describes his desire to have children of his own and the difficult journey he must take to have them, a journey that is also closely tied to his membership in Canada's First Nations and thus to the question of preserving his indigenous culture.

Love & Numbers

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A Two Spirited woman surrounded by spy signals and psychiatric walls attempts to make sense of love, global paranoia, and her place in the history of colonialism. Spliced in between her monologues are the binary codes of all the psychiatric drugs she has taken.

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