DOC SOCIETY CLIMATE STORY UNIT LAUNCHES INDIGENOUS-LED DOCUMENTARY FILMS TO CREATE A BIO-DIVERSE FUTURE FOR ALL

• By Mabel Pais

The Screening Tour has begun! It launched on September 30, 2025.

This pilot initiative empowers communities to work together and shift how impact distribution is shaped and shared.

In a move that prioritizes collective impact through collaboration, five critically acclaimed Indigenous-led documentaries are joining forces for a shared or joint   impact screening tour that launched on September 30.

“This initiative is about more than just bringing powerful films to new audiences—it’s about honoring the collective strength of Indigenous storytellers and reimagining how impact can be built through kinship, not competition,” said Megha Agrawal Sood, Co-Director of Doc Society. “The Indigenous Impact Alliance represents a shift toward community-led strategies where filmmakers, impact producers, and partners move together, not alone. We’re proud to support this pilot and to learn alongside these visionary teams as they chart new paths for distribution, engagement, and sovereignty.”

With the support of Doc Society’s Climate Story Unit, the Indigenous Impact Alliance the global screening tour brings together the award-winning films ‘YINTAH,’ ‘SINGING BACK THE BUFFALO,’ ‘SUGARCANE,’ ‘REMAINING NATIVE,’ and ‘BRING THEM HOME’ to amplify Indigenous voices and stories through a distribution strategy focused on aligned efforts. These films tackle crucial issues facing Indigenous communities while celebrating resilience, healing, and cultural resurgence.

“Our film, ‘Remaining Native,’ shows the power of community when it comes to creating spaces for joy, healing, and collective sharing, so to be able to align with a strategy that mirrors that level of collaboration gives us hope that we can reach a lot of people and create meaningful impact,” said Paige Bethmann, Director, Remaining Native.

The films are available for screening from Sept 30, marking Truth and Reconciliation Day in Canada, through November 21, to coincide with the end of COP 30, the largest environmental gathering in the planet, offering communities an opportunity to curate their own screening experiences and choose which films to screen based on their specific needs and interests. This audience-led approach ensures accessibility and cultural relevance while empowering local organizations to contextualize screenings within their own communities.

Making the screening tour available beyond North America will connect international audiences who may be unfamiliar with the films’ subjects, providing crucial context and fostering cross-cultural understanding of Indigenous issues and experiences.

The tour will prioritize in-person scheduled events, ensuring broad accessibility while maintaining the powerful communal experience of shared film viewing, discussion, and lead to action and engagement.

The Indigenous Impact Alliance launched with a gathering in New Mexico in January of 2025 , where participating teams defined the cohort’s core objectives around two primary goals: expanding Indigenous creative power and narrative sovereignty, and amplifying Indigenous stories through strategic, community-driven distribution and engagement.

This year-long pilot initiative, running through December 2025, is designed to enhance the impact of independent Indigenous films by coordinating strategies among film teams working on shared issues. By fostering collaboration, the program aims to build collective momentum in documentary impact work and address longstanding resource challenges in the independent film space. This cohort’s first goal centers on strengthening kinship among Native filmmakers, impact producers, and strategists, while developing support systems grounded in decolonization, land connection, and Indigenous creative sovereignty. A key component includes Indigenous/Native Impact Production workshops—hands-on, in-person trainings tied to festivals or existing events—that encourage earlier and deeper integration of impact strategy across the filmmaking process, from directors to producers and beyond.

The approach also represents a paradigm shift in independent documentary distribution, where film teams working on similar issues have chosen collaboration over competition to maximize their collective impact and reach diverse audiences across Turtle Island / North America, and beyond.

The Films

The five participating documentaries each offer unique perspectives on Indigenous experiences while sharing common themes of resilience, cultural preservation, and resistance to colonial systems:

• YINTAH, meaning “land”, is a feature-length documentary on the Wet’suwet’en nation’s fight for sovereignty. Spanning more than a decade, the film follows Howilhkat Freda Huson and Sleydo’ Molly Wickham as their nation reoccupies and protects their ancestral lands from several of the largest fossil fuel companies on earth.
• SINGING BACK THE BUFFALO tells the story of Indigenous visionaries, scientists and communities rematriating buffalo to the heart of the plains they once defined, signaling a turning point for Indigenous nations, the ecosystem, and our collective survival.
• SUGARCANE – A groundbreaking investigation exposes a shocking cover-up of cultural genocide perpetrated by the church and government, and illuminates the enduring love, beauty and courage of an Indigenous community.
• REMAINING NATIVE is a coming-of-age story told through the perspective of Ku Stevens, a young Native American runner navigating college athletics while the memory of his great-grandfather’s 50 mile escape from an Indian boarding school begins to connect past, present, and future.
• BRING THEM HOME tells the story of a small group of Blackfoot people and their mission to establish the first wild buffalo herd on their ancestral territory since the species’ near-extinction a century ago, an act that would restore the land, re-enliven traditional culture and bring much needed healing to their community.

Doc Society

Doc Society is a global impact organization that supports documentary films and filmmakers to create change. Through innovative programs and collaborative initiatives, Doc Society helps independent filmmakers maximize their social impact while building sustainable careers in documentary storytelling. Learn more at docsociety.org.

The Doc Society Climate Story Unit

The Doc Society Climate Story Unit is dedicated to supporting transformative storytelling to advance a climate just and biodiverse future. Across the Unit’s programs, artists, impact producers, and movement builders collectively envision, experiment and share how we can create an abundant world for all.

Learn more about The Indigenous Impact Alliance at indigenousimpactalliance.org.

Mabel Pais writes on The Arts and Entertainment, Spirituality, Social Issues, Health and Wellness, Education, Business, and Cuisine.