03/01/2026
🎬 Featured Film | Spotlight on Academics Film Festival 2026
THE DOCTRINE
01:23:00|United States| Directed by Gwendolen Cates
THE DOCTRINE is a feature-length documentary film about the Doctrine of Discovery that follows a group of Indigenous youth in Minneapolis/St.Paul who decide to request a meeting at the Vatican to explain how the 15th-century Doctrine has impacted Indigenous Peoples and advocate for its repudiation.
Also featuring Indigenous activists in Aotearoa New Zealand, Guatemala, New Caledonia, and Puerto Rico, the film exposes how laws of conquest and colonization issued by the Vatican in the 15th-century codified slavery, racism, and the exploitation of natural resources for profit, and became international law, targeting communities of color and enabling corporate forces driving the current climate crisis. Incorporated into U.S. law in 1823, the Doctrine of Discovery was also the origin of the transatlantic slave trade.
Join us March 5–7, 2026 at the Thunder Bay Museum for the 5th Annual Spotlight on Academics Film Festival, a three-day program of academic documentaries from Canada and around the world.
📍 Thunder Bay Museum
425 Donald St E, Thunder Bay
🎟 $10 per session
Registration link:
https://thunderbaymuseum1.wildapricot.org/event-6564752
All films will also be available to stream for free on ResearchTV from March 8–15, 2026.
Stay tuned as we continue to feature films from this year’s lineup.
