Films

60:00 minutes | 2019

Inuit and Cree of Nunavik (Northern Québec) recount how they escaped the economic oppression of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Overcoming tremendous challenges, in 1959 they founded a co-operative; then other communities followed suit. Today, the federation they created contributes as part of Nunavik’s co-operative movement, with accumulated assets exceeding half a billion dollars!

Drawing on their traditional values, Inuit and Cree teach us something of real value today: how to put social development at the heart of everything – including a successful business! Building prosperity, yet “leaving none behind.”

» Visit Atautsikut / Leaving None Behind Website

43:00 minutes | 2019

L’nuk (Mi’kmaq) Elder Joe Michael, invited by Acadia University to lecture on L’nuk Traditional Healing, chose instead to stage a re-enactment. Participating students were moved and galvanized! This led to their involvement in the making of a ground-breaking film exploring mutual healing from 400 years of colonialism. Woven throughout the re-enactments are interviews with participants: L’nuk Elders, Indigenous and Settler university students, and their professor. By expressing their true feelings they end up finding common ground.

50:00 minutes | 2010

(Review from the 2010 Atlantic Film Festival) “Halifax-based filmmaker John Houston’s new film is a startling hour-long drama adapted from a story in his father James Houston’s 1967 collection of Inuit legends. The magic realist tale revolves around a young man who must train with ghostly elders in a parallel universe to master a terrifying bow in order to gain justice over the killers of his family. Using extraordinary location work with dashes of imaginative art direction and a self-conscious framing structure, The White Archer is a starkly original Inuit drama that takes northern storytelling to a whole new place entirely.”

48:50 minutes | 2008

A multi-faceted remembrance, reflecting the life of Canadian artist/ author/ designer/ filmmaker James Houston. His name evokes the world of Inuit art—his life exemplifies what non-native and aboriginal people can accomplish together, when there is mutual trust.

72:00 minutes | 2007

(Review by Nora Isaacs, Mill Valley Film Festival, USA) “Renowned Canadian director John Houston tells the story of the Inuit culture’s celebrated epic hero, the prophet and shaman Kiviuq. The tale of Kiviuq, who was born when the world began, is considered ‘the secret Bible’ in Inuit tradition, and Houston—who is known worldwide for making movies that celebrate Inuit culture—relates this millennia-old tale as told to him by Inuit elders.

In a unique performance piece, spoken in Inuktitut and filmed in one room, Houston lets the Inuit arts of music, dance, song and storytelling reveal a timeless story about bravery, betrayal and survival.”

48:00 minutes | 2003

John’s capper to his Arctic trilogy; a look inside the mind of the Inuit hunter. “The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls.” So an Inuit shaman summarized the moral danger of being human…

Director John Houston’s third Arctic journey was sparked by a paradox: “Can animals be spiritual equals and one’s daily bread?” Multiple award-winner, Gemini nominee, Smithsonian Institution Native American Film & Video Festival selection.

50:00 minutes | 2002

This story holds the key to a mystery – a look into the Inuit soul—a quest for the female deity known to many as Sedna, alive in countless Inuit artworks, yet rarely mentioned. Continuing the trilogy, John probes the relevance of Nuliajuk’s ancient message—not only for Inuit but for us all—with the last elders who remember Her. And Inuit elders are the heroes here, breaking the long silence imposed on them by missionaries to share a hidden side of their spirituality.

45:18 minutes | 1999

A deathbed wish brings together an extended, cross-cultural family. For John’s first film, he co-wrote and directed a documentary about his parents, Inuit art pioneers James and Alma Houston, the Inuit of Cape Dorset, and their very special collaboration that launched Inuit art onto the world stage. Shot in the community of Kinngait / Cape Dorset, on Baffin Island, the film won multiple domestic and international awards, and launched John’s Arctic trilogy.