2021 Nominees

There Are No Fakes

Cave 7 Productions Inc.

CANADA

- Arts & Culture

There Are No Fakes is at once an art film and a uniquely gripping, cinematic exposé of modern-day colonialism. Beginning with a darkly comical feud that stems from a single painting, it snowballs to expose a vast art fraud involving the world’s first Indigenous art star; in the far north, it infiltrates a fraud ring and unveils a horrendous tale of abuse of Indigenous people in a racially fraught community. The Times of London called the film "a masterclass in controlled storytelling," The Guardian “a brilliantly bonkers story of feud and fraud,” it has been acclaimed as far and wide as Scandinavia and Australia. In Canada, prior to its much-lauded TVO premiere, it was voted top arts film at the Hot Docs International Documentary Festival, it helped win a precedent-setting appeal that reversed an Ontario superior court ruling, and launched a criminal investigation into widespread fraudulent production of and distribution of Indigenous art.