Resources for Learning About Canada's Residential School System

RE-KEN-SIL-E-A-SHEN is a poignant feature-length documentary from two-spirit Métis filmmaker Jamie Bourque-Blyan, where Jamie unearths painful truths about his family’s past, and connects with fellow survivors of conquest and colonization to explore how other countries including South Africa, Croatia, and New Zealand - have engaged in the process of truth and reconciliation post-atrocity, and how alternative approaches to healing through collective memory might be applied in Canada.

A sweeping drama grounded in historical truth, Bones of crows weaves together underrepresented moments in Canadian and Indigenous history, including the Indigenous contributions to WW2, the ongoing cases of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

Since the birth of the Canadian Confederation in the 19th century, Aboriginal communities have been scorned. The Indian Act, which was passed in 1876 and is still in force today, gave the federal government great powers over the First Nations, for whom it voluntarily denied civil rights and their culture in the name of a policy of forced assimilation. The spearhead of this policy was a brutal program of child education. For more than a century, tens of thousands of young Indians were forcibly interned in boarding schools, run by clerics, where they were subjected to violence and humiliation. They had to "kill off the Indian in them." But for the past ten years, the First Nations have been taking a stand. They are asserting their rights and asking for this injustice to be recognized. This film follows the cultural, political, and legal battle of these new avengers of the Indigenous cause. It's a road-movie along the frozen routes of Ontario, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories. It's a journey of initiation that takes us from the boreal forests of Canada's north to the secret archives of the Vatican.

REDx Talks is an Indigenous speaker series featuring the most influencial elders, creatives, thinkers and agents of change on Indigenous and reconciliation issues. REDx is building a knowledge bundle to be transferred to future generations from every part of the globe. The world views expressed on the REDx Talks stage come from Indigenous people themselves. RED is an acronym for stories of RESILIENCE and EMPOWERMENT, while facilitating DISCOURSE. X is in acknowledgement of treaties that have been signed.

Also available on DVD - call number PN 1997.2 S373 2009

Three Dene sisters and a brother, adopted as infants into separate families across North America, meet together for the first time in this deeply moving documentary by director Tasha Hubbard.