Wilfred Buck

Moving between earth and stars, past and present, this hybrid feature documentary follows the extraordinary life of Wilfred Buck, a charismatic and irreverent Cree Elder who overcame a harrowing yet familiar history of displacement, racism and addiction by reclaiming ancestral star knowledge and ceremony.

Buck is humble, profound, funny, always real and a master storyteller. Narration taken from his autobiography condenses the loss and pain of his youth into powerful, Beat-like poetry. After his community in Northern Manitoba is forcibly relocated to make way for a hydroelectric dam, Buck’s family loses everything. He descends into the darkness of the city streets, surviving any way he can, until he reconnects with Elders who start him on a path that transforms his world. Driven by insatiable curiosity and instructed by dreams, Buck becomes a science educator and internationally respected star lore expert. His mission is sharing these life-changing teachings—as relevant and urgent today as ever—always guided by ceremony and anchored in the land.

Director Lisa Jackson deftly interweaves verité footage of Buck’s present with archival footage and cinematic, dramatized scenes from his past, painting a portrait of a beloved leader who now stands at the forefront of the resurgence of Indigenous ways of knowing.