Growing up in Colombia, Luis España dreamed of a different life. When he married a Cree woman from Canada and returned to her small town, Luis found a sense of place driving the Zamboni at the local ice-rink where hockey is King.

Anishkutapeu is a short documentary that explores the connection between land and archives in the Innu community of Uashat in Sept-Îles, Quebec. A source of well-being, traditional knowledge, and identity, land and familial territories are an essential part of what it means to be Innu.

In Caribou in the Archive​, rustic VHS home video of a woman hunting caribou in the 1990s is combined with NFB archival film footage of northern Manitoba from the 1940s. In this experimental film, the difference between homemade video and official historical record is made obvious, and yet at the same time, their boundaries are reduced. Northern Indigenous women hunting is at the heart of this personal found footage in which the filmmaker describes the enigmatic events that led to saving an important piece of family history from being lost forever.

Landscape of Desire is a short experimental documentary film that combines locational filming, archival footage and photographs with narration, to tell the story of what home means and how the land defines the person. As the land changes around him, the one thing that remains constant for Mahfuzur is his home.

In winter of 1986 our mother writes in her diary: “To scratch the surface of a subject does not penetrate deep into the subject”. Almost three decades later, Pictures of Departure takes this entry and sets off to explore the surfaces and the scratches that linger across generations.

Two families, similar identities. Fleeing violence, they sought refuge in Canada and began a new life. This is the experience of thousands of people in our great country and yet these stories go mostly untold. Arrival Archives is an artful exploration of newcomer arrival stories, told through a multi-generational viewpoint. The stories intertwine as one, illustrating that Canada’s cultural landscape is a communal experience shared by many different faces.