Arctic Son is a generational gap story with an unusual backdrop. Old Crow a tiny town, 80 miles north of the Arctic Circle, population 300. Stanley Sr. is a hunter; a rugged man of the land steeped in native traditions who becomes suddenly reunited with his son after almost 20 years apart. They share a name and a bloodline, but for the moment that is all they share because their worlds and their lifestyles differ respectfully.

Seattle-raised Stanley Jr. is absorbed in hip hop music, video games, and drunken nights filled with debauchery. With their time together Stanley Sr., hopes to instil in his son a sense of balance and groundedness, drawing upon what he knows best — his history and the land. Embedded within this moving father–son story is a larger exploration of the complex relationship between tradition and urban culture; old and young; nature and pop culture; addiction and independence; and the bigger quest we all embark on at one point or another in our lives.

You don’t take everything away…you give something back. That is nature.

When the pharmaceutical industry got a hold of what is considered a profitable secret - the hoodia plant - it inspired filmmaker Rehad Desai to travel to the Kalahari to investigate global interest in ancient Bushmen knowledge. He meets Jan van der Westhuizen, a fascinating Khomani San traditional healer.

Jan's struggle to live close to nature is hampered by centuries of colonial exploitation. Unable to survive as they once did hunting and gathering, the Khomani now live in a state of poverty that threatens to see the last of this community. Who will pass on the knowledge of the land to its people and who can protect the plants that hold secrets and are a means to their survival?

This is a story of dispossession of the land, its inhabitants, their cultural and agricultural wealth.

The U.S. has directed its war on drugs against Bolivian coca-growing regions. The Bolivian government has attempted to eradicate coca crops which in turn devastated the livelihood of indigenous people who cultivated it. In response to the current government’s actions, the farmers formed a powerful union. Their leader is the Aymara Indian “Evo Morales”. In 2005 this unwavering, unpretentious socialist made a historic bid for the presidency.

This is the story about geopolitics, the people's movement, indigenous culture, and one man's impressive determination to reach for the presidency.

Off the coast of Senegal and under the thickness of night both Senegalese and European fishermen ready themselves for the big catch. They have one goal in mind but two different techniques in trying to accomplish their task. The Europeans use the latest technological devices to reap the wealth of the sea for European markets, while Senegalese fishermen use traditional nets to catch what remains - to nourish 600,000 of their people.

With radars and GPS the Europeans can fish for two months with no interruption. The Senegalese fishermen try to detect fish stocks by water movements, moon reflection on fish scales and using special amulets provided by spiritual guides from their villages. Whichever technique becomes more successful than the other, will only result in dire consequences; it’s just a matter of time!

Since the 1700s, the Mi'kmaw tribes of Nova Scotia have been fighting to protect their way of life, fighting for the right to fish in their native waters. Decades of tension between non-native and indigenous fishermen are now slowly coming to an end, as the two communities begin to come to a common understanding of the important role that fishing plays in both cultures.

Part environmental expose and part art film, this powerful crossover piece flies in the face of conventional documentary making methods. In her visually stunning picture, artist and filmmaker Mortimer leads us on a hypnotic journey to the high arctic. Against this wintry backdrop she follows research into the far-reaching effects of chemicals on the environment, and considers the extent of their consequences.

Featuring testimonies from leading environmental scientists and women from the Inuit community, Invisible tells the story of how man-made chemicals are building up in our bodies and being passed from mother to child. Mortimer uses dramatic imagery to create a fascinating portrait of contemporary Inuit life. The result is a thought-provoking documentary that questions how we live in the world today.

In Edmonton Alberta, Zacharias Kunuk, internationally renowned Inuit director meets Kiviaq, Canada's first Inuit lawyer. A former Golden Gloves boxing champion, a City Alderman, Kiviaq was also the only Inuk ever to play on the Edmonton Eskimos CFL football team. He arrived in the city as a young boy and was told to shed his Inuit identity. Now dying of cancer, he is focused on the last and most important fight of his life - suing the Canadian government to secure for the Inuit the same official status as all the other aboriginal peoples of Canada. Through the efforts of this extraordinary individual, we witness Zacharias Kunuk experience new ways to stand up for his own rights as an Inuk in this exceptional political documentary.

Northern Lapland, homeland to Northern Europe’s indigenous Saami people, contains Western Europe’s largest wilderness area, currently at the heart of unresolved Saami land claims. In cold Arctic winters, old-growth forests provide arboreal hanging lichen, the lifeline for free-grazing reindeer, who are the basis of Saami herding culture. Meanwhile, the state-owned forest company Metsähallitus is destroying important grazing forests, vital to the reindeer. In 2005, conflicts between Saami herders and government interests flared when the herders started an international campaign to save the forest from logging. It escalated as forestry workers, supported by Metsähallitus, set up a harassment camp next to a Greenpeace Forest Rescue Station in the disputed forests. Last Yoik exposes an emotional struggle for a dying way of life.

Jussi, seems lost. A young Saami man in his twenties, he has watched his family sell their reindeer herd against his wishes. Having lived in Lapland his entire life he resents his brother’s decision to move south, abandoning the traditional Saami ways. When his brother comes home for a visit, Jussi is confronted once more with the choices now facing the community and his family. What will he decide? A quirky, bittersweet drama from Lapland, sure to resonate with Canadian audiences.

Reinhold and his fellow sheep-breeding colleagues do shift work in the city, with the rest of their waking hours spent tending meticulously to their beloved Valais Blacknose sheep. The sheep of the Swiss Alps are not bred for their wool, nor for their meat, but rather for their good looks that bring pride and prestige to their owners. The obsession is lost on the wives and children of the sheep farmers; they are perplexed with this labour of love. A sensitive and charming tale about the strong affections between a farmer, his sheep and a vanishing way of life.

On the Indu-Bhutan International border, 650, 000 of the Bodo ethnic majority divert the course of the Pagladia river to 116 villages through 13 embankments. They are taking the river home from a rerouted course created in the 1920's. Only utilizing natural environmental sound, the film portrays the community’s collective action at the very first embankment by the river’s origin. They lift stone by stone, else they cease to exist.

The Lacandones lived for centuries hidden in the immense rain-forest of southern Mexico. A people of many myths, speaking an ancient Mayan language they had a unique knowledge of the forest, its plants and its animals. Recently they have been exposed to evangelical religion and modernizing influences, which has resulted in the loss of cultural knowledge from one generation to the next. Bor, an illegal immigrant in the United States returns to his Lacandones family in search of his identity. Knowing little about his past he meets one of the last remaining shamans who provides him with an alternate sense of the world and a spiritual experience. Meanwhile, the ravages of modernity on an ancient culture have left their scars on his immediate family.

When explorer Robert Peary sojourned to the Pole he not only left a historic legacy but a personal one with tragic implications for the people whose lives he had altered forever. Prize of the Pole follows the sombre contemporary journey of one of Peary’s Inuit descendants who attempts to reconcile the motives and actions of his white ancestor’s quest for glory in an imperial age. This unique film intersects the lives of three men over time and space revealing their own attempts to come to terms with the opposing cultural ties within them. A profoundly moving multi-textured and layered story leaves one confounded by the racist attitudes displayed and the lives destroyed in the wake of the Prize of the Pole.

The Inuit call ice Saattuq and its melting. In the High Arctic, climate change is not a debate. It’s a visceral fact of life transforming the lives of its people, its landscape and wildlife. Thin Ice provides a comprehensive overview of the impact of climate change on our Polar region. The film also presents the broader discussion over sovereignty and control of the arctic waters while melting ice presents new challenges and new perspectives on our vision of the north.

In just over 50 years, the Inuit have gone from the igloo to the internet- a profound transformation that would shock any society. Ullumi provides an unvarnished glimpse at a community dealing with pressures from within and from without against the backdrop of renewed debate over the future status of the Arctic world. Co-directors Evie Mark, Tunu Napartuk, Lena and Qajaaq Ellsworth explore the major challenges facing their families, their communities and their culture.

When ecology came and resulted in the establishment of a national park in Brazil, all sorts of conflicts came to light between the traditional and indigenous populations who lived and eked a living on these precious lands and the policy makers and environmentalists armed with noble intentions. In the global south environmental policies are being implemented through top down approaches without consultation with those whose lives are most radically affected by these decisions. This special film turns environmental questions on their head, the reconciliation of nature conservancy, social welfare and economic development. Have we thought our environmental solutions through?

From its headwaters in Canada to its vast delta on the Bering Sea, the Yukon River is the second-longest river in North America, flowing 2300 miles. Mining, manufacturing, military encampments and human settlement have all contributed to its polluted state. But instead of finger-pointing and blaming the polluters of their territories, the native people who live along its embankment from Canada and Alaska have joined forces taking leadership and responsibility for protecting their own lands, waters, animals and fish. They have formed the largest international treaty organization in the world. Yukon Circles follows their remarkable story.