The personal archive of a film maker based in Montreal
Ole Gjerstad traveled the seven seas, mined for silver and logged giant Canadian timber before becoming an anthropologist, writer, radio broadcaster and filmmaker. He founded Words & Pictures Videos/Vidéos mots & images in Montreal in 1992 and co-founded Piksuk Media in 2005. His some 60 documentaries have won many awards in Canada and abroad.
[PLAYLIST] Episode 1 of Building the Inuit Homeland, a 7X30 minutes documentary series available in Inuktitut and English, showing what Nunavimmiut have accomplished in their territory since they concluded the JBNQA. Episode 1 depicts the Inuit fight to protect their language, Inuktitut, when Quebec introduced Bill 101, the new language law, in 1977.
For more than four thousand years, human beings hunted and fished on the eastern tip of the Ungava peninsula. In the 1960s, the Inuit community of Killiniq (Port Burwell) grew rich from theabundant stocks of seal and fish. Then suddenly, within 20 years, the federal government decided to close the community down, using deception and lies, and causing a crisis for the Inuit population, homeless and destitute.
Nunavik is rich in minerals; the community of Aupaluk is surrounded by mining claims. At the end of the JBNQA negotiations, Quebec rejected all the community’s land selections in order to protect the mining companies. Today, the people of Aupaluk live with the constant threat of mines on their doorstep.
As Inuit across Canada’s Arctic moved from a nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle, pushed by the government, their sled dogs were left in the middle: Many Inuit still depended on the dogs for their survival; to the authorities they were a threat to public security and life in the communities. As many as 20,000 dogs were killed by police in the 1950s- 1970s, leaving an open wound in Inuit society.
In the 50 years since the Nunavik Inuit signed the James Bay Agreement, the JBNQA, they have worked hard to take back the control of their lives that 300 years of colonialism took away.
As Inuit across Canada’s Arctic moved from a nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle, pushed by the government, their sled dogs were left in the middle: Many Inuit still depended on the dogs for their survival; to the authorities they were a threat to public security and life in the communities. As many as 20,000 dogs were killed by police in the 1950s- 1970s, leaving an open wound in Inuit society.
In 1971, them Quebec provincial government launched a vast hydroelectric project that changed the land of the Cree and Inuit living in the north. Together, the Indigenous people went to court, and three years later emerged with Canada’s first land claims agreement, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. This is the story of how Inuit fought to save their land and their lifestyle.
En 1971, le gouvernement provincial du Québec a lancé un vaste projet hydroélectrique qui a transformé le territoire des Cris et des Inuits vivant dans le nord. Ensemble, les peuples autochtones se sont adressés aux tribunaux, et trois ans plus tard ont obtenu la première entente sur les revendications territoriales du Canada, la Convention de la Baie-James et du Nord québécois. C’est l’histoire de la façon dont les Inuits se sont battus pour sauver leur terre et leur mode de vie.
The annual Nunavut Quest dogsledding race is a challenging but festive event that preserves Inuit traditions and social life on the land. This 6×30’ series follows the dramatic 2010 race through the spectacular scenery of northwest Baffin Island.
When the Norwegian explorer Otto Sverdrup claimed the High Arctic archipelago for his country in 1902, the Canadian government woke up from its colonial slumber and despatched the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to stake out Canada’s presence. To say that the Mounties were ill-prepared is an understatement.
A rough and neglected childhood in Clyde River, Baffin Island, led Tony Kalluk to a dangerous life of crime and violence. After attempting “suicide by police”, Tony found his way back to life in the community, working as a counsellor to others heading down the slope that nearly took is life.
It’s 1957. The crew at a northern weather station complains that Inuit camping nearby are bothering them. In a sudden, arbitrary way, the Ahiarmiut families are moved to a place without game, and soon starvation sets in. A set of tragic events leads to the woman Kikkik being charged with manslaughter and criminal neglect leading to the death of a child.
This sprawling story follows families of the Utkuhiksalingmiut Inuit from life on the Kivalliq tundra to settlement and rise as celebrated artists around the world.
The annual Nunavut Quest dogsledding race is a challenging but festive event that preserves Inuit traditions and social life on the land. This 6×30’ series follows the dramatic 2010 race through the spectacular scenery of northwest Baffin Island.
The annual Nunavut Quest dogsledding race is a challenging but festive event that preserves Inuit traditions and social life on the land. This 6×30’ series follows the dramatic 2010 race through the spectacular scenery of northwest Baffin Island.
The annual Nunavut Quest dogsledding race is a challenging but festive event that preserves Inuit traditions and social life on the land. This 6×30’ series follows the dramatic 2010 race through the spectacular scenery of northwest Baffin Island.
The annual Nunavut Quest dogsledding race is a challenging but festive event that preserves Inuit traditions and social life on the land. This 6×30’ series follows the dramatic 2010 race through the spectacular scenery of northwest Baffin Island.
The annual Nunavut Quest dogsledding race is a challenging but festive event that preserves Inuit traditions and social life on the land. This 6×30’ series follows the dramatic 2010 race through the spectacular scenery of northwest Baffin Island.
The annual Nunavut Quest dogsledding race is a challenging but festive event that preserves Inuit traditions and social life on the land. This 6×30’ series follows the dramatic 2010 race through the spectacular scenery of northwest Baffin Island.
The annual Nunavut Quest dogsledding race is a challenging but festive event that preserves Inuit traditions and social life on the land. This 6×30’ series follows the dramatic 2010 race through the spectacular scenery of northwest Baffin Island.
Documentaries on Human Rights
Alors que des guerres et des catastrophes naturelles poussent des millions de personnes à chercher refuge en Europe et en Amérique du Nord, les Nations Unies recrutent l’éminente juriste canadienne Louise Arbour pour créer un pacte mondial visant à réglementer et humaniser le chaos. Le moment ne pourrait guère être plus mal choisi.
As the post-911 US War on Terror upends countries and regions around the world, Canadian jurist Louise Arbour is recruited as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights – a huge responsibility, but no real power. From Darfur to Chechnya and northern Uganda, it’s a brave uphill campaign.
As Louise Arbour is named as member of the Supreme Court of Canada, she pushes hard to advance her cases as Chief Prosecutor at the International War Crimes Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and the Rwanda genocide — a campaign against the impunity of powerful leaders on separate continents and the governments that protect them.
The wars in the Balkans and the Rwanda genocide shook the world. Governments, the UN, and other big agencies had done nearly nothing to stem the bloodshed. But better late than never; those responsible should be brought to justice. Our story follows Canadian jurist Louise Arbour as she battles to revitalize the UN-backed tribunals in Europe and Rwanda, cutting through layers of hate and killings.
Les guerres dans les Balkans et le génocide rwandais ont ébranlé le monde. Les gouvernements, l’ONU et d’autres grandes agences n’avaient pratiquement rien fait pour endiguer le bain de sang. Mais mieux vaut tard que jamais ; les responsables doivent être traduits en justice. Notre histoire suit la juriste canadienne Louise Arbour alors qu’elle se bat pour revitaliser les tribunaux soutenus par l’ONU en Europe et au Rwanda, traversant les couches de haine et de tueries.
Documentaries on Human Interest
Seven thousand members of the pacifist Russian Doukhobor community were shipped to Canada in the early 1900s. But their new country was not a pacifist haven, nor understanding of basic Doukhobor values. The trials and tribulations of one family is a still buried chapter in Canadian history.
Even as a child, Montrealer Lucille Teasdale was an adventurous student and activist. When she met Italian doctor Piero Corti, the couple’s energy and courage created an exceptional island of peace and protection, St. Mary’s hospital in northern Uganda.
Canadian author Farley Mowat was many things: brilliant storyteller, irreverent provocateur, lover of animals and all God’s creations. In this profile for CBC, he shows us his true nature.
As 25-year-old adventurers, montrealers Niels, Dave and John ventured to cross the jungle that breaks off the Pan American Highway between Panama and Colombia. They nearly died. To mark their 50 th , they return. But the Darien Gap has turned into a different kind of trap.
Documentaries from the African continent
1995, 47 minutes. Salamao was a boy of nine when he was taken from his parents and trained as a killer by the Mozambican rebel force known Renamo. One of his assignments was to kill Lina Magaia, a prominent writer and activist who had picked up a gun and organized a local militia in her home town of Manhiça. At the end of the war, we join Lina as she searches for Salamao among the thousands of abandoned child soldiers who roam Mozambique’s cities and countryside — illiterate, fearful and clutching to the dark skills they learned from their rebel bosses. When we find him, his future looks bleak.
1989, 30 minutes. It’s 1988, the worst year of the war, which apartheid South Africa has launched to destroy its black-ruled neighbour Mozambique. 17 year-old Albertino Roda is ending his school year in the city of Nampula, and he has only one thing on his mind: to find his way back to his home villages and see his parents, whom he hasn’t heard of since last year. It’s a perilous journey through burnt-out towns, destroyed plantations, and a whole population fleeing killings and abuse. Albertino gets ever so close to his home, but then…
1989, 30 minutes. Andimba Toivo-ya-Toivo was one of the first Namibians to organize against apartheid South Africa’s occupation of his country. He was arrested, in 1963, tortured and spent nearly 20 years on Robben Island, in the company of Nelson Mandela and other South African freedom fighters. With my friend Magnus Isacsson as Director, I went to Namibia as Toivo returned home after all these years, and Namibia is on the cusp of independence, after a long and bloody liberation war. It’s a tense, explosive place, and emotions run high all around.
Salamao avait neuf ans lorsqu’il a été arraché à ses parents et formé pour devenir un tueur par la force rebelle mozambicaine connue sous le nom de Renamo. L’une de ses missions consistait à tuer Lina Magaia, une écrivaine et militante de premier plan qui avait pris les armes et organisé une milice locale dans sa ville natale de Manhiça. À la fin de la guerre, nous retrouvons Lina alors qu’elle cherche Salamao parmi les milliers d’enfants soldats abandonnés qui errent dans les villes et les campagnes du Mozambique — analphabètes, craintifs, et accrochés aux sombres compétences apprises auprès de leurs chefs rebelles. Lorsque nous le retrouvons, son avenir semble bien sombre.
