The way science fiction is told is changing – and Indigenous Canadian filmmakers are leading this change. In 2025, three films stand out. They’re not driven by explosions or space politics. Instead, they pull from old stories, languages, and landscapes. If you’re focused only on studio blockbusters, you’re missing a shift in cinema that’s happening quietly, but meaningfully. These films speak with care. And they ask questions that most don’t dare approach.
Sky Road North – A Cree Tale Set on a Terraforming Colony
Sky Road North takes place in 2161 on Mars, where a Cree family ends up, following a forced exile to a terraformed colony. The cost for safety? Get rid of language, story and culture. However, the family refuses – they do so with daily recollections, not through actual violence. Every scene is developed slowly. Lines between remembering your dreams and past memories become hard to tell apart. Elders share their Cree vocabulary with kids after sunset, using the glow of candles as light.
Director Marlene Wâpanatâhk merges pictures of Indigenous beadwork with the Martian landscape. Filmed in Alberta and Newfoundland at a red clay quarry, the set consists of a shelter blending the design of old pergolas with modern curves – this helps create a traditional – yet futuristic – atmosphere.
The main idea: identity can be carried anywhere. On a new planet, culture still changes. There is no argument in the story. It shows.
Signal from the Old Shore – Ojibwe AI Rewrites History
A young Ojibwe employee in a library discovers that an AI in charge of document translation is instead changing signed treaties by reintroducing Indigenous oral tales.
Questions addressed in the film (directed by Jeff Monias in both Anishinaabemowin and English) include: What does it mean to find truth on the internet? Which group is usually responsible for documenting what happened in the past? And what benefits are there?
No high-pressure car chases take place. On the contrary, the tension develops in silent workplaces, thanks to an AI speaking slowly like an elderly person. This is not based on dystopia – it’s a fresh idea. It promotes thinking about things, instead of causing worry. The film uses AI to encourage a new way of seeing power, memory and data.
The Breathing Iron – Inuit Resistance on an Arctic Mining Moon
A teenage Inuit is the main character in The Breathing Iron, who lives in a moon ravaged by the mining of resources from the clan’s history. After she recognizes that the work affects historic sites, she opposes it, but not with fighting – she does it through maps, memories and knowledge shared by her people.
Pitsiulaaq Nakasuk directed it and the filming was done entirely in Nunavut using workshops with the locals to create the story. Younger people and older individuals helped develop the play’s script. Every word seems as if it was really experienced.
The movie is very well shot and looks beautiful. The landscape is treated carefully by the drivers. Throat singing paired with ambient noises makes the soundtrack seem both old and new. Land is definitely part of it, but so are the legacies behind it. It is not trying to run away from its themes. It acts to get back what was taken.
How These Films Expand the Idea of Science Fiction
None of these films follow the usual sci-fi playbook. There are no space wars. No chosen saviors. Instead, they reframe the future through a cultural lens.
- Sky Road North tells time in circles, not lines.
- Signal from the Old Shore turns AI into a healer, not a threat.
- The Breathing Iron sees resistance not in force, but in remembering.
What binds them is Indigenous futurism: the idea that Indigenous people not only survive the future – they shape it. These stories don’t reject sci-fi. They rework it through land, language, and lived truth. The future isn’t something far away. It’s built from what’s carried forward.
Why You Should Watch These Films Now
These films matter because they connect science fiction to urgent, real-world concerns: land rights, cultural erasure, and digital truth. But they do it with quiet power.
If you care about environmental collapse, AI ethics, or colonial legacy, you’ll find them here – not as theory, but as story.
Where to watch:
- Signal from the Old Shore – TIFF 2025 premiere, streaming via NFB this fall
- Sky Road North – Festival tour, digital release expected late 2025
- The Breathing Iron – Screenings in Nunavut; distribution pending
Support them by watching, sharing, and talking about them. These aren’t niche stories. They’re leading cinema forward.
A New Chapter in Indigenous Storytelling
These three films don’t use Indigenous identity as background – they center it. Each one stretches science fiction into something truer, more grounded. The filmmakers didn’t follow trends. They built new paths, using ancestral tools and present-day skill.
Whether through a Martian pergola, a treaty-writing AI, or an Inuit memory map, each film delivers this truth: the future doesn’t erase what came before – it carries it.
