[1] The oldest surviving indigenous film festival in Canada, it was first staged in 1992;[2] however, its inaugural edition faced some controversy when the First Nations Filmmakers Alliance pressured the festival's organizing committee to pull several scheduled films which had not been made by indigenous filmmakers.
[3] John Paskievich, the director of the dropped film Sedna: The Making of a Myth, criticized the decision, asking "How much of a percentage of native content do you need to have?
[1] For financial reasons, the festival was not staged in 1999 after failing to secure an arts grant from the city of Edmonton.
[7] It was revived in 2003 as a programming stream within the city's Global Visions Film Festival,[8] before being officially relaunched as a separate event again in 2004.
[10] In 2021 Christine Sokaymoh Frederick, Dreamspeakers’ executive director and team moved the programme of 35 films online after cancelling in 2020 due to the COVID19 pandemic.