Cree matriarch Aline Spears survives a childhood in Canada’s residential school system to continue her family’s generational fight in the face of systemic starvation, racism, and sexual abuse. She uses her uncanny ability to understand and translate codes into working for a special division of the Canadian Air Force as a Cree code talker in World War II. The story unfolds over 100 years with a cumulative force that propels us into the future.
Ruby is hopeful for a new start with her twin sister as they continue their education at an all-girl's boarding school. However, she soon endures torturous punishments and public humiliation as her cruel headmistress and stepmother plot against her.
Follows the life of Native Canadian Saul Indian Horse as he survives residential school and life amongst the racism of the 1970s. A talented hockey player, Saul must find his own path as he battles stereotypes and alcoholism.
Poet Layli Long Soldier crafts a searing portrait of her Oyate’s connection to the Black Hills, through first contact and broken treaties to the promise of the Land Back movement, in this lyrical testament to resilience of a nation.
A study of life at Christmastime in Moose Factory, an old settlement mainly composed of Cree families on the shore of James Bay, composed entirely of children's crayon drawings and narrated by children.
In 1976, a Mi'gMaq teenager plots revenge against the sadistic Indian agent who imprisoned her in a residential school where rape and abuse are common.
A poetic exploration of the multi-generational affects of Canada's Indian Residential School system, based on the personal trials of Aboriginal playwright Yvette Nolan.
Renowned Haida artist Bill Reid shares his thoughts on artistry, activism and his deep affection for his homeland in this heartwarming tribute from Alanis Obomsawin to her friend's life, legacy and roots.
For over 130 years till 1996, more than 100,000 of Canada's First Nations children were legally required to attend government-funded schools run by various Christian faiths. There were 80 of these 'residential schools' across the country. Most children were sent to faraway schools that separated them from their families and traditional land. These children endured brutality, physical hardship, mental degradation, and the complete erasure of their culture. The schools were part of a wider program of assimilation designed to integrate the native population into 'Canadian society.' These schools were established with the express purpose 'To kill the Indian in the child.' Told through their own voices, 'We Were Children' is the shocking true story of two such children: Glen Anaquod and Lyna Hart.
Documentary about the Holy Angels Residential School in Alberta, where hundreds of First Nations children were imprisoned.
The Élan School was a for-profit, residential behavior modification program and therapeutic boarding school located deep within the woods of Maine. Delinquent teenagers who failed to comply with other treatment programs were referred to the school as a last resort. Treatment entailed harsh discipline, surveillance, degradation, and downright abuse. Years later, the patients who were institutionalized in this facility still carry the trauma they endured, with mixed opinions on the impact of their experience.
Carrie Davis was part of the child removal system near the end of the Sixties Scoop. With guidance from her uncle Emmett Sack and the community, Carrie reconnects to their land, language, and culture.
For more than 100 years, thousands of Indigenous children died while in Canada’s residential school system. Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones survived, but he, like many others, experienced years of beatings and sexual abuse. The scandal has finally brought the Indigenous rights struggle into focus, none more so than at Fairy Creek, an area of forest on First Nations land that protesters are desperately trying to prevent from falling into the hands of logging companies.
This Peabody Award-winning documentary from New Mexico PBS looks at the European arrival in the Americas from the perspective of the Pueblo Peoples.
Between 1879 and 1986, upwards of 100,000 children in Canada were forcibly removed and placed into Indian Industrial Residential Schools. Their unique culture was stripped away to be replaced with a foreign European identity. Their family ties were cut, parents were forbidden to visit their children, and the children were prevented from returning home.
Residential school survivor Jacob struggles to hang onto his family as his demons threaten to manifest.
Christmastime at the Roman Catholic-run Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia.
In the 50 years since he carved his first totem pole, Robert Davidson has come to be regarded as one of the world’s foremost modern artists. Charles Wilkinson (Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World) brings his trademark inquisitiveness and craftsmanship to this revealing portrait of an unassuming living legend. Weaving together engaging interviews with the artist, his offspring, and a host of admirers, Haida Modern extols the sweeping impact of both Davidson’s artwork and the legions it’s inspired.
A poignant all-Indigenous English and Cree-English collaborative documentary that breaks long-held silences imposed upon indigenous children who were interned at the notoriously violent St. Anne’s Residential School in Fort Albany First Nation, Ontario. Use of a homemade electric chair at St. Anne's and the incorporation of testimony about student-on-student abuse makes this documentary stand apart from other films about Canadian residential school experiences. This film will serve as an Indigenous historical document wholly authored by Indigenous bodies and voices, those of the Survivors themselves.
On a summer day in the 1950s, a native girl watches the countryside go by from the backseat of a car. A woman at her kitchen table sings a lullaby in her Cree language. When the girl arrives at her destination, she undergoes a transformation that will turn the woman’s gentle voice into a howl of anger and pain.
