Purchase
- Pricing Info
- Finding Our Talk Season One
- Finding Our Talk Season Two
- Finding Our Talk Season Three
- Finding My Talk
- KANIEN'KEHÁ:KA: Living the Language
- Aboriginal Architecture
- Winter Chill
- Broken Promises
Pricing Info
- To order an individual episode or series using PayPal, please scroll to the film on this page
- The complete series of Finding Our Talk is now available on DVD in English. French and Mohawk versions of season 3 will be available once those languages begin airing in late fall.
Episodes are $29.95 each, $350.00 for each series (13 episodes) or $650.00 for season 1 & 2 (26 episodes) or $900.00 for all 39 episodes plus shipping and applicable taxes. (No taxes if sent outside of Canada).
Note for Educators: Purchase of any of the series includes public performance rights for classroom use. Individual episode sales do not have public performance rights.
Call: 514.279.3507 or 514.279.9576
Email: mushkeg@videotron.ca
Fax: 514.279.7493
Finding Our Talk - Season Three
Length: 13 x 30 min.
Release: 2009
Language versions: English, French and Mohawk
Program Locations: Quebec, Vermont, B.C., Australia, Louisiana, Guatemala, Bolivia, Norway, Hawaii, New Zealand, New York, Saskatchewan and Ontario
Languages represented in season three:
Anishnabe, Mi'gmaq, Cree, Abenaki, Ktunaxa, Chitimacha, Sami,
Hawaiian, Maori, Aymara, Guymbaynggirr, Arrernte, Kaqchikel, Poqomam, Quiche and Q’anjob’al
Host / Narration: Pakesso Mukash (English), Monia Routhier (French) and Hilda Nicholas (Mohawk)
Aboriginal Directors: Tracey Deer, Paul Rickard, Jeff Dorn, Josephine Bacon, Paul Chaput, Michelle Smith, Jeff Barnaby, Felix Atencio Gonzales and Reaghan Tarbell
13 shows produced in 3 different languages.
Finding Our Talk - Season Two
Length: 13 x 30 min.
Release: 2002
Language versions: English and French
Program Locations: Quebec, Yukon, New Brunswick, Ontario, Alberta, NWT, Saskatchewan and B.C.
Languages represented in season two:
Blackfoot, Mi'gmaq, Cree, Gwitchin, Naskapi, Ojibway, Shuswap,
Secwepemc, Dene-Zaa, Dakota, Oneida, Mohawk
Host / Narration: Paul Chaput (English, French), Arnold Cheechoo (Cree) and Hilda Nicholas (Mohawk)
Aboriginal Directors: Paul Rickard, Paul Chaput, Nick Huard, Felix Atencio Gonzales, Josephine Bacon, Reaghan Tarbell
Non-Aboriginal Directors: Erica Pomerance
13 shows produced in 4 different languages.
Finding Our Talk - Season One
Length: 13 x 30 min.
Release: 2001
language versions: English and French
Languages represented in the series: Mi'gmaq, Mohawk, Algonquin, Huron, Attikemekw, Innu, Cree, Inuktitut, Ojibway, Michif, Saulteaux and Sencofen
Aboriginal Directors: Paul Rickard, Paul Chaput, Nick Huard, Liza Uquituk and Rene Sioui Labelle
Non-aboriginal directors: Erica Pomerance, Magnus Isacsson, Derek Vertongen, Jocelyne Clarke
Program Locations: Quebec, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, B.C.
World's first Mohawk television series.
7 episodes shot by Aboriginal cameramen. 10 episodes had Aboriginal sound recordists.
New aboriginal training positions for the series at Mushkeg Media: 4 Researchers, graphics/editor trainee, accountant trainee and language versioning coordinator.
Training subsidies received from HDRC for 4 positions via Montreal Friendship Center
Training subsidies received from NFB -partial subsidies for 4 positions.
Finding My Talk: A Journey into Aboriginal Languages
Length: 48 min.
Release: 2000
Producers: Paul M. Rickard (Cree), George Hargrave and Janice Benthin
Director/Writer: Paul M. Rickard (Cree)
Edited: Dave Stonier
Music: Eric Lemoyne
Produced: Achimist Films Inc. and Nutaaq Media Inc.
Produced for: Aboriginal Peoples Television Network
In association with the Kativik School Board, Wawatay Native Communication Society and the Inuit Broadcasting.
A filmmaker looks at his Cree language roots and presents the work Native people across Canada are doing to revive and preserve First Nations languages.
This one hour documentary follows the journey of Cree filmmaker Paul M. Rickard as he searches for his own language roots and discovers the tireless efforts of many individuals who are promoting, reviving and preserving the use of Aboriginal languages within their communities.
He visits Carcross in the Yukon where the Tlingit language is one of the most endangered languages in Canada. From there he travels to Kahnawake, Quebec where the Mohawk have been conducting special language programs since 1977. His journey also takes him to Iqaluit where Inuktitut is thriving as the official language of the government of Nunavut. In each place he meets dynamic people who are leaders in the struggle to save their languages. Revitalized by these experiences,Paul returns home to Moose Factory, Ontario with a new appreciation for his own language.
KANIEN'KEHÁ:KA: Living The Language
Length: Two-part documentary, 48 min each. The DVD also includes the 62 min. festival cut of the film.
Release: 2008
Original Language: Mohawk
Other Versions: English and French
Producers: Paul M. Rickard and George Hargrave
Produced by: Mushkeg Productions Inc. in association with APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network)
Kanien’kehá:ka - Living the Language is a two part documentary about the personal, thought provoking and honest stories of the Mohawk language (Kanien’kehá:ka) immersion program in Akwesasne. It examines various aspects of what it takes to learn and maintain a language through immersion by addressing key concepts of tradition, traditional education and identity preservation.
In the late 1970’s, the Mohawk community of Akwesasne began a dynamic language revitalization movement. The establishment of Mohawk language immersion programs and the creation of the Akwesasne Freedom School were just two of the major aspects of the movement. “One cannot be traditional without knowing and speaking Kanien’kehá:ka (the Mohawk language)” is often heard at the school. Parents and elders operate the Freedom School by a consensus decision-making process with financial support primarily from annual quilt sales and potluck dinners.
Aboriginal Architecture – Living Architecture
Aboriginal Architecture - Living Architecture
Length: 90 min.
Release: 2005
Format: DV Cam Widescreen 16:9
Director: Paul M. Rickard
Producers: Paul M. Rickard and George Hargrave
Co-produced: the National Film Board of Canada and Mushkeg Productions Inc.
Writers: Paul M. Rickard and Janice Benthin
Broadcasters: Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and Saskatchewan Community Network
Purchase: Aboriginal Architecture is available for purchase through the National Film Board.
In association with APTN and the National Film Board of Canada
a documentary that explores the way Aboriginal architecture reflects the diversity of environments and Aboriginal cultures across North America.
Everyone is familiar with certain types of Aboriginal architecture. Traditional igloos and tepees are two of the most enduring symbols of North America itself. But how much do we really know about the types of structures Native peoples designed, engineered and built to house their lives? For more than three hundred years, native communities in North America have had virtually no indigenous architecture. Communities have made do with low cost government housing and community projects designed by strangers in far away places.
THE WINTER CHILL
Lengh: 24 min. 50 sec.
Release: 2006
Director: Paul M. Rickard
Producers: Paul M. Rickard (Cree) and Daniele Rohrbach
Actors: Dakota House (Cree) and Glen Gould (Mi'gmaq)
Location: Moose Factory, Ontario, Canada
The Winter Chill is a short drama that follows a young Cree man into the bush where he is reluctantly tending his father’s trapline only to run headlong into the legendary Cree creature, Pakaaskokan. At first terrified, he is shocked to learn that there was far more in his father’s stories than he ever dared realize.
Broken Promises: The High Arctic Relocation
Length: 48 min.
Release: 1995
Language Versions: English, French and Inuk
Director: Patricia V. Tassinari
Producers: George Hargrave (Nutaaq Media) Barrie Howells & Don Haig (NFB)
Associate Producer: Erica Pomerance
Writer: Erna Buffie
Locations: Nunavik and The High Arctic
In the summer of 1953, the Canadian government relocated seven Inuit families from Northern Québec to the High Arctic. They were promised an abundance of game and fish - in short, a better life. The government assured the Inuit that if things didn't work out, they could return home after two years. Two years later, another 35 people joined them. It would be thirty years before any of them saw their ancestral lands again. Abandoned in flimsy tents, the Inuit were left to fend for themselves in the desolate settlements of Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord, where the sea was nearly always frozen and darkness reigned for months on end. Suffering from hunger, extreme cold, sickness, alcoholism and poverty, Québec's Inuit had become the victims of a government policy supposedly designed to return them to their "native state". Evidence points to the government's wish to strengthen Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic as playing a part in the decision to relocate. Interviews with survivors are combined with archival footage and documents to tell the poignant story of a people whose lives were nearly destroyed by their own government's broken promises.