The Cinema Studies Institute will offer CIN380H1S - Indigenous Cinema in the Winter 2026 term, on Mondays and Tuesdays 17:00-19:00. Course enrolment is now open.
Indigenous Cinema has been creating Visual Sovereignty, resisting colonialism, revealing strategies for survival, and carving out a space in global cinema to speak to other Indigenous viewers and find the similarities between us. This course will reflect on Indigenous representations from outsiders, and the subsequent development of Indigenous Cinema by Indigenous people around the world. Through screenings, readings, discussions, and writing assignments, the students will gain an understanding of the unique histories and films of Indigenous people from North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and Northern Europe. By the end of this course students will be able to articulate the similar ways colonization has affected Indigenous people, and the unique ways Indigenous filmmakers represent resistance, resurgence and resillience.
Screenings will include films like Beans (Deer 2020), Angry Inuk (Arnaquq-Baril 2016), Rocks At Whiskey Trench (Obomsawin 2000), Boy (Waititi 2010), and Night Raiders (Goulet 2021).
The course will be taught by Theo Cuthand, Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies Artist-In-Residence, 2025-26, and a member of the Little Pine First Nation. Learn more about Theo Cuthand.