Haida Carver
1964 · 12m · Canada
Directed by Richard Gilbert
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender
Young Haida artist Robert Davidson travels to gather argillite stone, then carves miniature totems using techniques passed down from his grandfather.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 12-minute document of a kid carving rocks—sounds like the most conventional piece of NFB heritage cinema imaginable, which is exactly why it's probably doing something nobody expected and I'm furious I have to wait to see it.
Gilbert's decision to frame Davidson's practice as a direct transmission—grandfather to grandson, stone to hand—positions this within a lineage of both Haida craft and the documentary tradition itself, making the film a meditation on continuity that only works because every formal choice honors that restraint.
The singular move here is letting the carving itself be the narrative: no voice-over, no melodrama, just the specific patience required to work argillite, which transforms a 12-minute short about a teenager into something that makes you feel the weight of inherited technique.