Videos
Streaming
- A Common ExperienceA Common Experience is a poetic exploration of the multi-generational affects of Canada's Indian Residential School system. It is based on the personal trials of Aboriginal playwright Yvette Nolan.
- Indigenous health and social inequities : understanding the role of adverse childhood experiences and historical trauma"Words don't change children's lives. Real action by the government and equality would." - Cindy Blackstock, PhD, First Nations Child & Family Caring Society of Canada
- In Jesus' Name: Shattering the Silence of St. Anne's Residential SchoolThis film carefully documents the abuses suffered by the indigenous children who were interned at the notoriously violent St. Anne’s Residential School in Fort Albany First Nation, Ontario. These First Nations children suffered isolation from family and community, as well as physical, sexual, spiritual, and cultural abuse at the hands of the Catholic Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the Sisters of Charity. While Chief Wilton Littlechild imparts some of what he learned from his six years as a Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner, seven St. Anne's survivors share publicly their acutely emotional stories, some for the very first time. The film also brings to light how, in this era of truth and reconciliation, the Canadian government continues to try to silence knowledge of abuses that occurred at St. Anne's by withholding evidence from the survivors as they seek compensation for harms done to them when they were just children. This video contains material that may be disturbing to some viewers. The producers of this film recommend that mental health supports be made available to audiences.
- L'enfance déracinée (Uprooted Generation)A young Innu returns to the site of the Sept-Îles Indian Residential School, which closed in 1972 to deliver a poetic tribute to its victims.
- Last Call Indian Searching for Mohawk IdentityBy the time Sonia Boileau's grandfather Mitchell left the Shingwauk Indian Residential School in 1947 he no longer knew how to speak his native tongue. The institution had done its job well - Mitchell married and raised children, who didn't realize until they had children of their own that Mitchell was in fact Mohawk. Sonia now faces a similar stripping away of the First Nation heritage her family only recently reclaimed. According to Canada's Indian Act, any children she has will not be "officially Indian" unless their father has the requisite percentage of indigenous blood. In this powerful documentary, filmmaker Sonia Boileau returns to Shingwauk to work out the implications of her grandfather's life and of his death, especially in relation to Canada's race policies and her own cultural identity.
- Seeing Canada. Winnipeg, ManitobaIn this episode, Brandy Yanchyk travels to Winnipeg, Manitoba to The Canadian Museum for Human Rights. She learns about Indian Residential Schools in Canada.
- Truth & reconciliationThis film explores the darkest chapter in Canadian history. From the establishment of the early Residential Schools to the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this film shines a light on to the cultural genocide that was perpetrated by the Canadian Government and churches towards Canada's Indigenous People. Written and directed by multiple award-winning Métis filmmaker Matt LeMay.
- Truth and reconciliation. KokomAn experimental film, a tribute to the filmmaker's grandmother, his "kokom", and, through her, to the Anishinabe people who have survived the trials of history and have remained strong.
- Truth and reconciliation. L'amendement = Abinodjic madjinakiniFour generations. Three residential schools. Two cultures. One extinction.
- Truth and reconciliation. Les enfants perdusThe residential school syndrome is passed on from generation to generation. By speaking out, some of its victims help free themselves.
- Truth and reconciliation. NekaOn an old crumpled piece of paper, a young woman pays tribute to her mother.
- Untold. Native American boarding schools : forced separation of familiesFor over a hundred years, the U.S. government used education as a tool to assimilate Native American children into American society - by systematically erasing their history, culture, and language.
- White ravens : a legacy of resistanceFor millennia, the Haida People have lived on the remote islands of Haida Gwaii. In the wake of the forced assimilation brought about by the Indian Residential Schools, the Haida Nation continues to face great challenges in retaining their cultural and economic sovereignty. From the perspective of a young Haida poet (Towustasin Stocker), White Ravens bears witness to the transgenerational trauma of colonization as survivors, their children, and grandchildren struggle with the effects of substance abuse, suicide, and interfamily trauma. White Ravens focuses on patterns of resistance, from Towustasin's family history of blockading corporate logging operations, to the Haida Nation's resurgence of the potlatch - the gift-giving ceremony that remains central to the selfgovernance of all Coastal First Nations People. On the eve of a historic chieftanship potlatch, the film meditates on the Haida legacy of resistance and resurgence, presenting a portrait of a First Nation community in healing.
Physical media
The residential school experience : a century of genocide in the AmericasCall Number: Media DVD ; E96.5 .R47 2003Publication Date: 2002This film tells the story of Native American children being taken from their parents and forcibly sent to residential schools in Canada and in the United States. The film includes a quotation from the Genocide Convention which prohibits forcibly taking the children away from their parents because of their race.- Trail of tears : a Native American documentary collectionCall Number: Media DVD ; E77 .T72 2009ISBN: 9786313519736Publication Date: 2009Trail of tears : Cherokee legacy: Documents the forced removal in 1838 of the Cherokee Nation from the southeastern United States to Oklahoma. Shows the suffering endured by the Cherokees as they lost their land and the difficult conditions they endured on the trail. Describes how thousands of Cherokees died during the Trail of Tears, nearly a quarter of the nation, including most of their children and elders.
Black Indians: Explores issues of racial identity between the mixed-descent peoples of both Native American and African American heritage.
Native American healing in the 21st century: Learn from today's respected physicians the crossover of ancient native remedies to present-day medical practices. Explore for healing plants and herbs. Learn from tribal elders traditional healing practices and philosophies. Discover the contents of a recently found 350-year-old medicine bag. Compare the similarities of Native American and Chinese healing.
Our spirits don't speak English: Imagine you are a child, taken from your home, your family, taken from everything you know. In 1869, the U.S. government enacted a policy of educating Native American children in the ways of western society. By the late 1960s, more than 100,000 had been forced to attend Indian Boarding School.
