Movies Similar to Wandering Spirit Survival School

Colebrook: A Place of Healing & Learning(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.

Amazônia, a Nova Minamata?(2022)

Documentário Brasil Tupinambá(2021)

The Making of a Japanese(2024)

Intimately following 1st and 6th graders at a public elementary school in Tokyo, we observe kids learning the traits necessary to become part of Japanese society.

Through the Repellent Fence: A Land Art Film(2017)

The film follows Postcommodity, an interdisciplinary arts collective comprised of Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martinez and Kade L. Twist, who put land art in a tribal context. The group bring together a community to construct the Repellent Fence, a two-mile long ephemeral monument “stitching” together the US and Mexico.

LaDonna Harris: Indian 101(2014)

A documentary film about Comanche activist LaDonna Harris, who led an extensive life of Native political and social activism, and is now passing on her traditional cultural and leadership values to a new generation of emerging Indigenous leaders.

Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy(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.

Preschool to Prison(2023)

Preschool to Prison is a compelling examination of how the United States public school system is built and operated like prisons. Zero-tolerance policies are used to justify suspension and arrests that set up a pathway to send children of color and children with special needs from school to prison. Children are being suspended, restrained, dragged, physically manhandled, and subsequently arrested for minor offenses such as throwing candy on a school bus. These personal accounts from people affected by the school-to-prison pipeline give riveting tales about the generational impact on society.

The Lost Children(2024)

After a plane crash, four indigenous children fight to survive in the Colombian Amazon using ancestral wisdom as an unprecedented rescue mission unfolds.

Button Blanket(2009)

This short impressionist documentary looks at the creation of a Button Blanket by integrating the performance of a traditional dance with the art of the West Coast Heiltsuk Nation.

The Colours of Pride(1973)

Tom Hill, a Seneca artist and curator, explores the works of four contemporary Indigenous artists.

Tawai: A Voice from the Forest(2017)

Explorer Bruce Parry visits nomadic tribes in Borneo and the Amazon in hope to better understand humanity's changing relationship with the world around us.

Nowhere Land(2015)

Documentary about filmmaker Bonnie Ammaaq's memories of life on Baffin Island, where her family moved for eleven years during her childhood from the hamlet of Igloolik to return to the traditional Inuit way of life.

The Pearl Button(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.

The Paradox of Norval Morrisseau(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.

Our People Will Be Healed(2017)

Legendary documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin provides a glimpse of what action-driven decolonization looks like in Norway House, one of Manitoba's largest First Nation communities.

Nose and Tina(1980)

The unusual story of Nose and Tina, 2 people in love. He is employed as a brakeman, she as a sex worker.

Les influenceurs sont dans le pré(2024)

Kainai(1973)

On the Kainai (Blood) First Nations Reserve, near Cardston, Alberta, a hopeful new development in Indigenous enterprise. Once rulers of the western plains, the Bloods live on a 1 300-square-kilometer reserve. Many have lacked gainful employment and now pin their hopes on a pre-fab factory they have built. Will the production line and work and wages fit into their cultural pattern of life? The film shows how it is working and what the owners themselves say about their venture.

Deep Roots(2020)

Lonnie Kauk’s personal journey to honor his indigenous Yosemite roots, and to connect with his legendary father by repeating his iconic climbs.