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Roy Daniels (1)
Roy Daniels
Roy Daniels, an Ojibwe filmmaker from Manitoba, was one of seven young trainees who formed the historic Indian Film Crew, an all-Indigenous production unit established in 1967 at the NFB. Daniels is one of four IFC members—along with Willie Dunn, Michael Kanentakeron Mitchell and Barbara Wilson—credited with directing the 1968 release These Are My People, the first NFB production made entirely by an Indigenous crew. Shot in the Kanien'kéhaka (Mohawk) community of Akwesasne, the short documentary features local spiritual leaders Standing Arrow and Tom Porter and presents the Longhouse tradition as a model of effective governance.
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These Are My People...Michael Kanentakeron Mitchell , Willie Dunn , … 1969 13 minReleased in 1969, These Are My People… was the first NFB film made entirely by an Indigenous crew. It was co-directed by Roy Daniels, Willie Dunn, Michael Kanentakeron Mitchell and Barbara Wilson—members of the Indian Film Crew (IFC), an all-Indigenous unit established in 1968 as part of Challenge for Change, a broader organizational initiative to use media to effect social change. One of the first Canadian documentaries to foreground an Indigenous perspective on the history of Indigenous–settler relations, it features Standing Arrow and Tom Porter, from the Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) community of Akwesasne, who discuss longhouse religion, culture, government and the impacts of settler arrival on their way of life.
