Nanook of the North (1922)

  This is not nominated for this year's Oscars.  It's actually from my film class, which is Cinema of Exploration.  We've watched a couple of other things, but only bits in class so this is the first one I've watched all the way through.

This proto-documentary follows Nanook, an Inuit man from the polar circle, as he goes through several recreations of traditional indigenous activities, like building an igloo, trading hunted skins, and killing a seal and a walrus.  The filmmaker, Robert Flaherty, spent a couple of years trying to put together enough footage of "natural" life before saying Fuck It, and just scripting nearly the whole damn thing.  Still, it's pretty pioneering in that camera equipment in 1922 wasn't exactly the most user friendly or convenient, and it does show the arctic circle in the days before global warming.  You can watch the whole thing on Wikipedia or YouTube.  As a warning, it is super racist and they actually show real animals being killed.  My advice is to watch the film for the nature bits and fast forward past the trading post scene and the hunting scenes.

This film is a great example of accepting our past, warts and all.  This indigenous family was exploited for the entertainment of white people and that is inexcusable but that doesn't mean the film doesn't have value.  It's part of our collective human history and facing it is the only way we'll learn to be better.