Mixed with documentary festival footage from 2009 and a fictional story about Kelci and Diana's experience at the 2019 Robson Valley Music Festival, Ark: a return to Robson Valley, blends two different decades to immerse the viewer into an ongoing worlding project that the McDonald family have dedicated their lives. More than a music festival, it is an ark.

In a lodge conceived and built by Kainai High School students, Kainai Blood Tribe Elders, youth, and counsellors confront the ongoing trauma of the Canadian Residential School system and work to build a future informed by their cultural teachings.

"A journey that feels far more profound than the film’s 32-minute run time." --Ryan Garner, Edmonton Journal Sept. 1, 2020.

An Official Selection at 19 International Film Festivals.

In the hour before a gig, Amplify, an Indigenous hiphoppa and member of the Edmonton based hip-hop group Unspittable, remembers the three years of struggle that led to tonight.

Full of intimate performances, Unspittable is an improvised ethno-fiction film that brings the audience into the reality of Indigenous hip hop in urban Canada following the group from its formation to its maturity.

Anna is a Canadian filmmaker visiting Porto, Portugal for a work project. She has a week to spare before her assignment begins and she meets a local named Francisco through Tinder. After a whirlwind discovery of Porto, Anna learns that the Canadian Decentralized Dance Party is hosting an event. Anna dances between digital and physical networks falling deeply in love with the city, and maybe Francisco.

Filmed with 1950s era 16mm lenses on a digital cinema camera, WE'RE TOO LOUD is a stylish ethnographic film about a second-generation rock musician struggling to maintain a “hippie” way of life on a small northwest coast Canadian island.

Follow composer Peter Togni's "The Living Flame of Love" from conception through to Pro Coro Canada's performance in 2019. Featuring Michael Zaugg, Peter Togni, Joseph Petric, Nora Bumanis, and singers from Pro Coro Canada.

Winner of Best Short Film at the Central Alberta Film Festival, "John Wort Hannam is a Poor Man" is a cine-portrait of a blue-collar singer-songwriter struggling to make a living as an artist. John travels across the Canadian prairies from gig to gig, meeting old friends, competitive artists, and quirky characters.

The product of three years of work in Northern Alberta that explores the traditional Cree philosophy of Pimachihowan that roughly translates into living with the land. The northern Cree are First Nations (Indigenous Canadians) living in the Boreal forest, second in size and ecological importance only to the Amazonian Rainforest, an indispensable resource to maintaining life.

Every week Dre Pharoh and iD meet with young Edmonton hiphoppas at a local community centre. Together they make a knowledge cypher called Cipher5 where they work towards developing both skills and better selves. This is a film about one of those meetings where they talk about HipHop Kulture and build a new hip-hop track about their transformation to a higher self, Megamorephesis.

The story of tragedy at the Attawapiskat First Nations brings up issues of colonization, truth and reconciliation in a very personal way for a group of hiphoppas in Edmonton Alberta Canada.

This is a short film that looks at an Idle No More Rounddance that was held at the University of Alberta campus on January 10th 2013, through a lens that is often informed by media coverage of events. By contrasting the eye-witness lens of my camera with the lens of Youtube news sources I want to collide these two types of learning together to see what comes out of the mediation.

A daughters journey to discover the music festival her father loved and the island that makes it possible.

There’s a filmmaker in every one of us, and the camera is right in the palm of our hand. Ethnomusicologist Michael B. MacDonald is challenging us all to turn on our smartphone cameras and use film to connect our communities. Michael B. MacDonald is a filmmaker, ethnomusicologist and associate professor of music in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Communications at MacEwan University. His research focuses on youth and community studies, ethnographic film, and the critical pedagogy of music. He has published two books: Playing for Change: Music Festivals as Community Learning and Development and Remix and Life Hack in Hip Hop: Towards a Critical Pedagogy of Music. Michael is the director of FreireProject.org, and his films are freely available at MichaelBMacdonaldFilms.ca This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx