Indigenous Film & Media Guide

"The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has been producing works about Indigenous lives and experience since the early 1940s, but for the first three decades of the NFB's existence, Indigenous people were restricted to being subjects in films by non-Indigenous directors. It was not until the late 1960s, when Challenge for Change ushered in a radical new participatory approach to production, that Indigenous people began putting their own stories on film. Since that time, the NFB has produced over 280 works by First Nations, Métis and Inuit directors. Today, more than 20 projects by Indigenous directors are underway at the NFB's studios across Canada, and over the past four years Indigenous production has represented 9.5 percent of overall production spending at the NFB. But these gains were hard won. The struggle of Indigenous people within the NFB mirrors broader social and political struggles to confront Canada's legacy of internal colonialism and the long, repressive shadow cast by the 1876 Indian Act'--Introd., pages 1.

Indigenous media challenges the power of the state, erodes communication monopolies, and illuminates government threats to indigenous cultural, social, economic, and political sovereignty. Its effectiveness in these areas, however, is hampered by government control of broadcast frequencies, licensing, and legal limitations over content and ownership.Indigenous Screen Cultures in Canada explores key questions surrounding the power and suppression of indigenous narrative and representation in contemporary indigenous media. Focussing primarily on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, the authors also examine indigenous language broadcasting in radio, television, and film; Aboriginal journalism practices; audience creation within and beyond indigenous communities; the roles of program scheduling and content acquisition policies in the decolonization process; the roles of digital video technologies and co-production agreements in indigenous filmmaking; and the emergence of Aboriginal cyber-communities.

The National spoke to three influential filmmakers about the state of Indigenous film in Canada. CBC Radio host Duncan McCue is joined by filmmakers Lisa Jackson and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and the director of Canada's new Indigenous Screen Office, Jesse Wente.