Making Primitive Stone Tools
1950 · 11m · Canada
Directed by Douglas Leechman
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative
An Indigenous crafts specialist selects river stones in British Columbia and demonstrates chipping methods used to make arrowheads, axes, knives and scrapers.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 1950 NFB doc about stone tool craft sounds like the opposite of subversive until you realize it's probably shot in a register that refuses nostalgia or primitivism—but I'd need to see it to know if Leechman's actually interrogating the ethnographic gaze or just perpetuating it.
This sits in a precise lineage of post-war documentary practice where craft demonstration becomes a formal study in patience and close observation; the 11 minutes likely unfold with the kind of measured pacing and compositional rigor that distinguishes NFB work from mere instructional film.
The entire film probably hinges on how Leechman frames the hands—whether through tight close-ups or wider contextual shots—and how that single recurring choice shapes whether we're watching technique or witnessing something closer to meditation.