Documenting Extractive and Indigenous Futurities: Thirza Cuthand’s and Thomas Kneubühler’s Radical Work

The aim of this article is to examine how different modes of moving image practice can expose and critique the impacts of extractive capitalism and settler colonialism on Indigenous communities in northern Canada. The article focuses on the work of two contemporary artist-filmmakers, Thirza Cuthand and Thomas Kneubühler. Their work has consistently engaged with the impacts of late capitalist violence and power within the context of settler-colonial Canada. The article argues that these filmmakers’ engagements and critiques of such formations of power are built around radically different framings and conceptualizations of futurity—as both a dominant logic within the exploitative rationale of extractive capitalist speculation and projection (Kneubühler), but also as a potential catalyst for Indigenous decolonization and self-determination (Cuthand).