Documentary details horrific cruelty towards and abuse of First Nations children in residential schools and discovery of unmarked graves
This gripping account of the abuse of First Nations children at Catholic residential schools in Canada rightly won the jury prize for documentary direction at Sundance in January and is now an early Academy Award favourite.
Early in the film, a group of volunteers ventures into a barn on the grounds of St Joseph’s Mission residential school near the Sugarcane Reservation in British Columbia. They find heartbreaking inscriptions from desperate children. Investigators Charlene Belleau and Whitney Spearing uncover more than 50 unmarked graves nearby.
Founded in the late 19th century, St Joseph’s was one of many state-supported Catholic institutions intended to counter “the Indian problem”. The grandmother of Julian Brave NoiseCat, the film’s codirector, who was himself born in mysterious circumstances in the institution, says, “Before we went to residential school…
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