Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild]

Both powerful and contemplative, this hybrid documentary follows the Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance (MACPRA) as they work to bring Ancestors and sacred objects home from museums, archives and libraries. Blending vérité portraits with reflective passages and luminous animation, the film exposes the enduring colonial frameworks that displaced and confined Indigenous remains under the guise of preservation. At its heart is the emotional labour of repatriation, as practitioners navigate law, history and spirituality. Honouring Ojibwe understandings of time as fluid and relational, the film becomes both a call for justice and a moving meditation on continuity, care and return.