Wilfred Buck Review | Ad Astra Per Aspera [Video]

An inspirational and contemplative documentary about one person’s lengthy journey to make others recognize the space where ancestral knowledge, personal hardship. and science intersect, Wilfred Buck is the sort of personal profile that’s increasingly rare to see these days. Director Lisa Jackson has found a perfect subject to profile in writer, astronomer, addictions consultant, and indigenous knowledge keeper Wilfred Buck, and his story is more than worthy of a feature length platform. Buck’s life and work speaks to a lot of issues at once, and Jackson and her subject have an astute clarity of vision with regard to how to make all of it come across at once, while making the viewer intrigued enough to go out and learn more on their own. It’s a quiet, but very special documentary.

Buck’s story begins before he was even born, when his Cree ancestors were forced off their lands in Northern Manitoba to make …