This next generation of storytellers have something to say when it comes to grounding oneself in homeland and community. These stories of return and reconnection, fulfilling our gifts to the community, healing through a crisis and picking up traditional knowledge of the land will leave you hopeful for the future.

Coming of age, marriage, commitment to family and to love. A pastiche of themes, LIVING IN TWO WORLDS creates an intersection that allows audiences to better understand the duality of humanity vs nature, identity vs blood quantum, authenticity vs celebrity — a self discovery through film.

Healing through laughter is often a way our communities use play to engage with serious issues. These filmmakers will make you look at things with a smirk, a chuckle, or even a downright knee slap, rejoicing in the resilience of our people.

Woven together by language, whispers, hair, and sacrifice, KIN TIES explores our relationships to the ancestors and to the land.

Strengthening our family makes our culture strong. These films celebrate birth, children, mothers, fathers, and our Elders to show us we are all journeying together and that no one is left behind because our voices matter and because family matters.

Celebrating the voices of our Elders we see the footprints they leave behind for us to follow, the wisdom of their teachings, and how their teachings echo through our lives

Over six years, Ninan Auassat: We, The Children embeds itself among three groups of youth that live on the Atikamekw, Eeyou Cree, and Innu Nations. Told entirely from the point of view of the children and teens, the level of trust and caring that filmmaker Kim O’Bomsawin has put into these relationships is evident by the candidness of what the youth share. In between sweeping cinematography, they talk about what life is like in a fly-in community, the complications of being in school with Innu being their first language, and how their lives are different from non-Indigenous kids their age. Apart from the differences, this film also shows how similar children are, no matter where they’re from.

Indigenous women’s contributions to the growth of Indigenous Cinema were never easy. From the early days of Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin’s career to today’s emerging Iskwewak storytellers, Dr. Jules Arita Koostachin meets with Indigenous female filmmakers to share their stories and struggles of breaking into the industry and what it takes to uplift the next generation.

Commissioned in celebration of imagineNATIVE's 15th anniversary, the Festival is thrilled to present the Embargo Collective II, five short films created by five distinguished artists. Executive produced by Danis Goulet, these shorts push the creative boundaries of the participating filmmakers and invite viewers into new Indigenous cinematic landscapes. Based on Lars von Trier's The Five Obstructions, the first Embargo Collective — presented in celebration of imagineNATIVE's 10th anniversary in 2008 — was a landmark project in Indigenous Cinema and was celebrated and screened internationally. The 2014 Embargo Collective II works, each created by a female Indigenous Canadian filmmaker, cross genres and themes as they collectively explore the spirit of filmmaking. Most of the descriptions for this program are republished from the 2014 imagineNATIVE Catalogue.

In March 2008, imagineNATIVE formed the Embargo Collective, an international group of seven Indigenous artists who collaborated and challenged one another to create seven new films. Each of the artists has an impressive body of work, demonstrating exceptional talent and vision with a different focus in media arts — documentary, fictional narrative, and experimental work — and each representing diversity of Indigenous Nations. These artists were chosen for their enthusiasm for collaboration and their willingness to be open to a challenge. Inspired by filmmaker Lars Von Trier's documentary The Five Obstructions, imagineNATIVE encouraged the members of the Embargo Collective to push their creative boundaries by asking them to construct a set of limitations for one another. While the initial goal was to demonstrate how essential the collaborative process is to film, a far more profound and intimate result materialized over 20 months: As the filmmakers shared their experiences, inspired one another, and created work together, a collective spirit was born. What you are about to see are the fruits of the collaboration, a true testament to what film can be when artists come together to create. Most of the descriptions for this program are republished from the 2009 imagineNATIVE Catalogue.