Decolonizing documentary spaces: Enacting care-full methods within educational institutions

In this article, the authors share their experiences of two documentary co-creation projects, the First Peoples’ Post-Secondary Storytelling Exchange and Circle Visions, media initiatives for Indigenous college students and emerging filmmakers, which took place in two post-secondary institutions in what is today called Québec, Canada. The authors frame their reflections historically as well as through the lens of Indigenous sovereignty to consider their projects’ relationships to ongoing Indigenous resistance. The article moves between personal recollections of the projects and the care-full, relational methodologies, processes, outcomes and priorities of co-creative approaches to decolonizing pedagogy and filmmaking. Despite challenges posed by the institutional colonial apparatus, the authors identify opportunities for Indigenous creatives to express themselves in culturally relevant ways, while enacting meaningful change upon the academic contexts within which media mentorship and filmmaking take place. Prioritizing care and generosity over extraction and control, these initiatives offer generative pathways for creation, storytelling and stewardship for planetary well-being.