Programmers' Picks: Tracy Rector on SIFF 2026
Indigenous Shorts: Teachings of the Elders
This annual selection of Indigenous-made shorts from around the world returns with teachings from the Elders. At times cathartic, at times cautionary, and always essential, these stories carry forward deep lived histories of wisdom, artistry, and first hand experience. Together, they remind us that the tools for survival are all around us, rooted in culture, community, and memory, and that they are not only worth protecting and reviving but worth fighting for.
Mārama
Mārama, the striking directorial debut of Taratoa Stappard, moves through shadow and memory as an anti-colonial psychological horror film that names British violence while lifting the enduring power of Māori women. In their strength, culture survives, resists, and transforms.
Lucky Lu
After seeing this gorgeous film at TIFF, my first thought was, how rare and powerful it is to experience true cinematic art. Every element from storytelling, performances, locations, and cinematography, is seamlessly interwoven into a remarkable whole. Since watching Lucky Lu, I’ve never seen New York City bicycle messengers the same way. Once invisible to me as essential workers, I now see them in their full humanity with deepened awareness and a lasting sense of compassion.
Powwow People
As an immersive, observational story, Powwow People invites audiences to witness the unfolding of a powwow over the course of a single day. Emcee Reuben Little Head is the perfect guide, grounded, generous, and often hilarious. The film’s final 30-minute long take is deeply inclusive, creating space for viewers to simply be present with community. It’s a powerful reminder that to witness in this way is a privilege and a blessing.
Cookie Queens
As a former Girl Scout and cookie-selling queen, I loved this film’s portrait of femme empowerment. It captures the emotional highs and lows with humor while thoughtfully exploring personal agency and the complexities of good parenting.
To Hold a Mountain
High in Montenegro’s Sinjajevina plateau, To Hold a Mountain captures a mother and daughter living in deep relation to the land. This quiet cinéma vérité portrait reveals resilience and strength as their pastoral world faces an uncertain, looming threat.
The Condor Daughter
The Condor Daughter moves between mountain and city as if between worlds of breath and noise, spirit and fracture. Landscapes stretch open while the city pulses, alive and overwhelming. Through restrained sound, deliberate rhythm, Quechua vision and two quietly commanding performances, the film becomes a meditation on belonging, inheritance, and becoming, where the tension between tradition and change lingers like an echo carried across generations.
Kikuyu Land
Colonialism is not past, it is present, persistent, and continues to displace people from their ancestral homelands while fracturing communities. Kikuyu Land brings this reality into sharp focus through investigative journalism, intimate family stories, and the enduring strength of the Kikuyu peoples. Grounded in both urgency and care, the film reminds us that collective action is essential and that together, communities hold the power to resist large-scale corruption and the ongoing extraction of Indigenous lands by global corporations.
Birds of War
An epic love story unfolds at the intersection of war and the newsroom, where two lives find one another amidst conflict. As their bond deepens, their journey weaves together Syrian and Lebanese histories, Christian and Muslim traditions, and the many ways humans struggle and dare to communicate love in times of upheaval.