Film Categories: Race + Ethnicity

  • Lac La Croix

    Native people young and old speak about land issues, the environment, and the culture and history of Lac La Croix Ojibway peoples of northwestern Ontario. The film examines issues such as the community ban on liquor, the fight against welfare dependency, and the effects of the media on young people. “Lac La Croix” was made with the full cooperation of the Lac La Croix community. In the film, many different people speak about their lives and their current political struggles. This is a film about a Native community fighting successfully for survival, blending the old and the new.

  • Late Afternoon

    Late afternoon light is usually viewed as “the magic light,” the most beautiful light of the day. But it is too short for people to really enjoy it. So is the love between human beings. The love story of two women in this video represents love in general. Although love is momentary, it is unforgettable – which is the whole meaning of the life we are living.

  • Law Is in the Seed, The

    “The Law Is in the Seed” is a video of a poem by the same name written by Alex Jacobs, a Mohawk Indian poet from Akwesasne (New York State). The poem is about the Native American concept of democracy as contained in the Great Law, an oral document which originated with Deganawida, the Huron co-founder of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Great Law was the model for the United States Constitution. As Jacobs begins to recite the poem on camera, the video mixes to the faces of Mohawk children and women, their lips moving in and out of sync with Jacobs’…

  • Leftovers

    In “Leftovers”, Janine Fung’s wild narration about misunderstandings in her traditional Chinese family plays over images of her mother carving turkey. Also available on QUEERS ON THE VERGE.

  • Lotería

    “Lotería” is an impressionistic documentary comprised of a series of interviews with street vendors, lottery officials, and the children responsible for drawing the winning numbers. These children, referred to as “gritones” (they literally shout out the numbers), are employed because their innocence is considered incorruptible. Rather than taking a conventional reportage approach, “Lotería” presents Mexico’s lottery as a visual and auditory phenomenon. The illusionary quality of the lottery as a part of Mexico’s cultural history is represented through the textured layers of the film’s sound and photography. Shot on both colour and black and white, Super 8 and 16mm, with…

  • Mabou Fights Back

    When it came time to announce the closing of the Mabou post office in Cape Breton Island in Eastern Canada back in March of 1991, it was viewed as a “natural opportunity” by Canada Post. Here was a rural community servicing 1,000 residents whose post master had retired a few years ealier and had never been replaced. It was merely a matter of giving notice and assuming that a local store would be willing to take up the slack. It turned out that Mabou was not a typical rural community. There is a strong sense of heritage there, including the…

  • Make Some Noise

    “Make Some Noise” is an hour -long documentary that examines the underground rap music scene in Toronto. It focuses on the rappers, disc jockeys, managers, producers, radio annoucers, and personalities who are creating a Canadian hip hop culture.

  • Marc & Ann

    An enchanting portrait of Marc and Ann Savoy, Cajun musicians who are dedicated to the preservation and continuance of Cajun culture. Marc is an irreverent storyteller and accordion maker; his wife Ann is the mother of four, and author of the book “Cajun Music: Reflection of a People.”

  • Mashiko Village Pottery, Japan 1937

    Produced by a pre-war cultural organization in Japan, the film is a work of great clarity and beauty which follows an entire pottery-making cycle as performed in Japan for centuries. Mashiko ceramic manufacture is said to date back to 1853. Also shown at work is the great painter of teapots, Masu Minagawa, an itinerant, illiterate painter of patterns who travelled amongst the kilns in villages. It is said that she decorated up to one thousand teapots per day. Some of her very rare drawings on paper are now held at the Fogg Art Museum in Massachusetts. The film was restored…

  • Me, Mom and Mona

    The women of the Shum family are a force to be reckoned with. Sitting around joking about how they pull the wool over Dad’s eyes, or remembering all the absurdities of growing up Chinese in Vancouver, it’s clear they’ve hit on a strategy that can handle both Chinese tradition and Canadian custom – humour. The laughter resonates throughout “Me, Mom and Mona” to touch off much deeper responses.