Documentary
Inuit traditional face tattoos have been forbidden for a century, and almost forgotten. Director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, together with long-time friend and activist Aaju Peter, is determined to uncover the mystery and meaning behind this beautiful ancient tradition. Together they embark on an adventure through Arctic communities, speaking with elders and recording the stories of a once popularized female artform. Central to the film is Arnaquq-Baril’s personal debate over whether or not to get tattood herself. With candour and humour, she welcomes us into her world, to experience firsthand the complex emotions that accompany her struggle. Past meets present in this intimate account of one woman’s journey towards self-empowerment and cultural understanding.
MOVIE COMMENTS
SIMILAR MOVIES
Timuti
Colebrook: A Place of Healing & Learning
Documentário Brasil Tupinambá
Signatures of the Soul
Nanook of the North
Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher
How to Build an Igloo
Saving Warru
Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy
Greenland
Highway to the Arctic
The Lost Children
Qipisa
Undermined: Tales from the Kimberley
Ningwasum
The Pearl Button
These Are My People...
The Paradox of Norval Morrisseau
Tattoos: A Scarred History
Twice Colonized
SIMILAR MOVIES
Timuti
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2012
In Inukjuak, an Inuit community in the Eastern Arctic, a baby boy has come into the world and they call him Timuti, a name that recurs across generations of his people, evoking other Timutis, alive and dead, who will nourish his spirit and shape his destiny.Colebrook: A Place of Healing & Learning
IMDB 0 | May , 2022
Colebrook Blackwood Reconciliation Park is where the Colebrook Training Home once stood. It is now a permanent memorial for the Aboriginal children of the “Stolen Generation” and their families.Documentário Brasil Tupinambá
IMDB 10 | Aug , 2021
Signatures of the Soul
IMDB 0 | Oct , 1984
Tattooing — "the world's oldest skin game" — is the subject of this iconic documentary. Writer/director Geoff Steven scored a major coup by signing Easy Rider legend Peter Fonda as his presenter. Travelling to Aotearoa, Samoa, Japan and the United States, the doco traces key developments in tattooing, including its importance in the Pacific, prison-inspired styles, and the influence of 1960s counterculture. Legendary tattooists feature (including Americans Ed Hardy and Jack Rudy), while the closing credits parade some eye-opening full body tattoos.Nanook of the North
IMDB 7.1 | Jun , 1922
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.Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher
IMDB 0 | Oct , 2023
Part oral history and part visual poem, Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher is the story of Evelyn Campbell, a trailblazer for an Inuit-led educational system in the small community of Rigolet, Labrador.How to Build an Igloo
IMDB 6.7 | Jan , 1949
This classic short film shows how to make an igloo using only snow and a knife. Two Inuit men in Canada’s Far North choose the site, cut and place snow blocks and create an entrance--a shelter completed in one-and-a-half hours. The commentary explains that the interior warmth and the wind outside cement the snow blocks firmly together. As the short winter day darkens, the two builders move their caribou sleeping robes and extra skins indoors, confident of spending a snug night in the midst of the Arctic cold!Saving Warru
IMDB 0 | Jul , 2019
Warru, or black-footed rock-wallaby, is one of South Australia's most endangered mammals. In 2007, when numbers dropped below 200 in the APY Lands in the remote north-west of the State, the Warru Recovery Team was formed to help save the precious species from extinction. Bringing together contemporary science, practical on-ground threat management and traditional Anangu ecological knowledge, this unique decade-long program has celebrated the release of dozens of warru to the wild for the first time.Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy
IMDB 9 | Apr , 2021
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.Greenland
IMDB 0 | Dec , 2024
Highway to the Arctic
IMDB 7 | Feb , 2017
Every winter for decades, the Northwest Territories, in the Canadian Far North, changes its face. While the landscape is covered with snow and lakes of a thick layer of ice, blocking land transport, ice roads are converted to frozen expanses as far as the eye can see.The Lost Children
IMDB 7.5 | Nov , 2024
After a plane crash, four indigenous children fight to survive in the Colombian Amazon using ancestral wisdom as an unprecedented rescue mission unfolds.Qipisa
IMDB 4 | Feb , 2017
The director goes back to her roots in Pangnirtung, amongst her family and community. It leads her to another journey: to Qipisa, the outpost camp from where they were uprooted.Undermined: Tales from the Kimberley
IMDB 0 | Aug , 2018
Kimberley Traditional Owners question what meaningful negotiation looks like and offer humanising portraits of those at the centre of this battle in Australia’s spectacular north-west corner, which governments aspire to make "the future economic powerhouse of Australia". With the highest percentage of Aboriginal people living on Country in Australia, what will this mean for the Kimberley’s custodians, lands and cultures, and will they survive these pressures?Ningwasum
IMDB 0 | Feb , 2022
Ningwasum follows two time travellers Miksam and Mingsoma, played by Subin Limbu and Shanta Nepali respectively, in the Himalayas weaving indigenous folk stories, culture, climate change and science fiction.The Pearl Button
IMDB 6.9 | Oct , 2015
The ocean contains the history of all humanity. The sea holds all the voices of the earth and those that come from outer space. Water receives impetus from the stars and transmits it to living creatures. Water, the longest border in Chile, also holds the secret of two mysterious buttons which were found on its ocean floor. Chile, with its 2,670 miles of coastline and the largest archipelago in the world, presents a supernatural landscape. In it are volcanoes, mountains and glaciers. In it are the voices of the Patagonian Indigenous people, the first English sailors and also those of its political prisoners. Some say that water has memory. This film shows that it also has a voice.These Are My People...
IMDB 0 | Oct , 1969
This documentary short is the first film made by an all-Aboriginal film crew, training under the NFB's Challenge for Change Program. It was shot at Akwesasne (St. Regis Reserve). Two spokesmen explain historical and other aspects of Longhouse religion, culture, and government and reflect on the impact of the white man's arrival on the Indian way of life.The Paradox of Norval Morrisseau
IMDB 0 | Jan , 1974
In this revealing study of Norval Morrisseau, filmed as he works among the lakes and woodlands of his ancestors, we see a remarkable Indigenous artist who emerged from a life of obscurity in the North American bush to become one of Canada's most renowned painters. Morrisseau the man is much like his paintings: vital and passionate, torn between his Ojibway heritage and the influences of the white man's world.Tattoos: A Scarred History
IMDB 0 | Jun , 2009
An exploration of how the once taboo art form has become socially acceptable.Twice Colonized
IMDB 7.8 | Mar , 2023
Renowned Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter has long fought for the rights of her people. When her son suddenly dies, Aaju embarks on a journey to reclaim her language and culture after a lifetime of whitewashing and forced assimilation. But can she both change the world and mend her own wounds?