What Was Ours

Sámi artefacts from the Finnish National Museum are returning home to Sápmi, while the holy drums of the Sámi people are still imprisoned in the basements of museums across Europe. The returning objects symbolise the dignity, identity, history, connection to ancestors and a whole world view that was taken from the Sámi people. Director Suvi West takes the viewer behind the scenes of the museum world to reflect on the spirit of the objects, the inequality of cultures and the colonialist burden of museums.

“Kill the Indian to save the man” was the catchphrase of The Carlisle Indian Industrial School, a boarding school opened in Pennsylvania in 1879. It became a grim epitaph for numerous native children who died there. In 2017, a delegation from the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming attempts to retrieve the remains of three Northern Arapaho children buried far from home in the school cemetery, on a journey to recast the troubled legacy of Indian boarding schools, and heal historic wounds. This documentary film is produced by The Content Lab LLC, with support from The Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund, The Wyoming Humanities Council, and Wyoming PBS.

Live footage from concentration camps after the liberation, and the complex transport and lodging of masses of prisoners of war and other deported people back to their home countries, at the end of World War II. A 45min 35mm print also exists (shown at Cinémathèque française in 2023).

Lake Mungo is an ancient Pleistocene lake-bed in south-western New South Wales, and is one of the world’s richest archaeological sites. Message from Mungo focuses on the interface over the last 40 years between the scientists on one hand, and, on the other, the Indigenous communities who identify with the land and with the human remains revealed at the site. This interface has often been deeply troubled and contentious, but within the conflict and its gradual resolution lies a moving story of the progressive empowerment of the traditional custodians of the area.

Filmmaker Kevin McMahon accompanies the Haida delegation on a repatriation trip to Chicago in 2003. His film reveals the whole repatriation process through the stories and experiences of the people who participated, both Museum staff and the Haida people.

Four French museums, the Louvre, the Quai Branly, the French National Library, and the Rouen Museum, are faced with pressing demands for the return of works of art. The number of demands is multiplying. They come from all over the world, and in particular from Egypt, Mali and New Zealand. The question of returning works of art to their countries of origin is increasingly making news. Take for example the emotions aroused by President Sarkozy’s decision, on the 12th November 2010, to return 297 royal manuscripts to South Korea. The ensuing row involved diametrically opposed points of view. Was it a violation of the principle of inalienability of France’s national collections or was it a just reparation for the victims of colonization? The rich countries’ great museums and the countries of origin have completely different visions of the issue. The museums defend the idea of a universal museum whose works belong to the whole of humanity.

A man that is a stranger, is an incredibly easy man to hate. However, walking in a stranger’s shoes, even for a short while, can transform a perceived adversary into an ally. Power is found in coming to know our neighbor’s hearts. For in the darkness of ignorance, enemies are made and wars are waged, but in the light of understanding, family extends beyond blood lines and legacies of hatred crumble.

A century ago the Torres Strait Island were the subjects of the famous Cambridge Anthropological Expedition - the resulting depletion of their cultural artifacts left them with nothing but a history of remembered loss. The only people in the Pacific to make elaborate turtleshell masks have none left - they are all in foreign museums. In a quest to reclaim the past, Ephraim Bani, a wise and knowledgeable Torres Strait Islander, travels with his wife to the great museums of Europe where his heritage lies. The film, an SBS Independent production, shows that the thickest of masks cracks when a descendant of the original owners enters a museum.

Drawing on original footage from National Geographic, Etched in Bone explores the impact of one notorious bone theft by a member of the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. Hundred of bones were stolen and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, until it became known to Arnhem elders in the late 1990s. The return of the sacred artefacts was called for, resulting in a tense standoff between indigenous tribespeople and the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian.

University student Anna and her boyfriend Tomek use a precious photograph to trace and unveil the complex wartime and post-war past of their parents.

With heart and determination, Antoine Griezmann overcame his small stature to become one of the world's top soccer players and a World Cup champion.