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(♪♪♪)
(children laughing)
(laughing)
(♪♪♪)
(sighing)
- I remember long ago,
there was a black car that came...
and a man and his wife, White people.
And they were talking to my mom and dad.
I looked at the licence plate, and it was from Pennsylvania.
It was a black and yellow licence plate.
And that man, finally, he said...
"Would you like to come and live with us, little boy?" he said.
It scared me up. I don't know who these people are.
I ran into the bush
and I stayed over there with my dog.
I had a little plastic sheet,
and I stayed in the bush for about a month,
until I was sure they were gone.
My mom said:
"It was really quiet here."
Lots of kids were gone.
(Native language)
"I'm sad", she said.
Quite a few years later,
we found out there were different places.
Some of them came home and told us where they were.
And they were different, those young kids.
Some of them were adults when they came home.
- So Canada's efforts to assimilate Indigenous kids
began in the 1840s with the first residential school.
(children praying)
From the late 1950s and early 60s
to the mid-1980s,
the mass removal of children
continued through the child welfare system.
Tens of thousands of Indigenous kids
were removed from their families and placed into White families
in North America and internationally.
All of this is what we'd refer to as the Sixties Scoop.
In Canada, you know, we have
this sort of collective amnesia about things.
Well... And maybe it's not even amnesia,
cause amnesia means that you actually knew about something
and then forgot about it.
But residential schools, Sixties Scoop,
people didn't know about it.
That was, I think, very deliberate,
because you can, you know...
Who wants to broadcast it there and...
We're on a program of assimilating Indigenous people
so that we don't have any more fiduciary responsibility
and we don't have to, you know, share
the resources of the land and whatnot.
I think truth is important when we're looking
at our collective colonial history in Canada.
If people don't know the true stories,
the truth of what happened,
then, they're never gonna know who we are.
And we've always been storytellers,
so here's one more.
We got a lot more coming, though.
(♪♪♪)
- Little Bird is a miniseries
about one woman's experience
after being abducted from her home in Saskatchewan
and being adopted into a Jewish family in Montreal.
And the story follows her journey of discovery
to uncover the truth of her past
and pursue her desire
to understand the story that was stolen from her
about who she is.
(♪♪♪)
- What we see with Little Bird is one of those stories
on a very, you know, personal...
on a personal level.
It's a family unit
that's been taken apart.
(Native language)
My name is Elle-Maija Apiniskim Tailfeathers.
I come from Sapmi, from the Norgga region.
I'm also Blackfoot from "Gainah" or Kainai.
And I'm a filmmaker.
- And action, kids!
- So, we're witnessing something really special right now
in terms of Indigenous cinema.
There's been this massive movement
towards narrative sovereignty,
and that means so many things.
I'm just really proud to be a part of this movement,
but I recognize there's a long way to go.
It's flowers.
You're not going to do it right now, but...
- Hey, can you still get me some water?
(bucket dropping)
Go!
(Native language)
- My name is Jade Willoughby.
I'm from Whitesand First Nation in Northern Ontario.
As First Nations Indigenous people, we're very community,
we're very place-based, you know.
And that's the structure that, you know,
was essentially attempted to destroy.
And, you know, we're seeing the ripple effects now
of what that was, but you still see that cohesiveness.
We're finding each other.
And I think in this project, that's what it is.
So, for me, I'm giving a voice, you know,
to my grandmother's story and her sister, you know,
and many other people in my family
that have gone through this.
- So, I'm Raven Sinclair
and I'm from Gordon First Nation,
Treaty 4 territory, Cree, Assiniboine and Saulteaux,
Crow and Red River Métis ancestry.
And I'm a professor of social work
at the University of Regina in Saskatoon.
So, I am a survivor of the Sixties Scoop.
I was adopted on my fifth birthday in 1966.
And the experience for me of reconnecting
and learning about the Scoop was really, really important.
What was significant about that is
we all thought we were the only ones.
So, learning that this was one of the assimilation projects
of the government... ha-ha!
governments, provincial governments,
was really important because then, you know,
we were able to, then, depersonalize it a little bit.
You know, then, you're no longer thinking:
"This is something that's fundamentally wrong with me."
It's something that's fundamentally wrong
with the system.
- This role hits very close to home
because my dad, being a member of the Sixties Scoop,
changed my entire life.
So, there was a level of compartmentalization
that had to happen where it was like I need to sort of...
separate my own personal experience
and sort of put that aside so that I can focus
on the work and do the work
because stories like this need to be told.
And I think any other actor
who wasn't of Indigenous ancestry
or have Indigenous lived experience
wouldn't necessarily have to use those,
like, mental coping mechanisms
in order to do this role.
(indistinct chatter)
- All right, folks, let's go to our first position, please!
Again, from the very top, but only until...
- Can we just reset?
- You want me to reset it? - Yeah.
My name is Zoe Hopkins.
I'm a writer and director on Little Bird.
I'm born in Bella Bella. I'm Heiltsuk on my mom's side.
That's where she lives.
And I'm Mohawk on my father's side.
I live in Six Nations.
Canada is still having a reckoning with truth
and what happened and is still happening
to our people in this country.
You know, we hear
the term reconciliation thrown around a lot.
And it is very true
that we can't have that until there's truth.
And this is a part of that kind of frontline advocacy
and activism on screen.
(♪♪♪)
- Folks, let's go to our first positions!
Rehearsal!
- I was part of the Sixties Scoop,
so that's my connection with this film.
My character's name is Asin.
I'm the granddad. I'm doing granddad stuff now.
My... slave name, I like to call it,
my adopted name
- I was adopted at birth -
is Eric Kurt Schweig,
but the name... I never met my mother,
but the name that she gave me
before I was taken away was Ray Dean Thrasher.
I'm Inuit, Portuguese, German and Senegalese.
My birthplace is Inuvik in the Northwest Territories.
It's just at the mouth of the Mackenzie River delta
underneath the Beaufort Sea.
Why is it important that this story be told...
this story in particular be told by us?
Because every time the other side tells it,
they screw it up, or they romanticize it,
or they titillate the...
any of the bad things that go on,
and it's stereotypical and it's nonsense.
The only time that you can get
the real meat and potatoes from something like this
is from First Nations people,
from the source.
- I knew when I became a producer
that I would only ever tell
Indigenous stories that multi-dimensionalize us
and our experiences.
I don't think there's one Indigenous family
that hasn't been impacted by residential school
or the child welfare system.
I don't know one. I've never met one.
For me, because my community is in Saskatchewan,
Southern Saskatchewan, Muscowpetung,
I placed the story in that region,
because I wanted it to be as close
to my home community as possible.
So, I followed the river near my reserve
and, like, followed it on Google Maps into Manitoba,
and then I chose communities that that river flowed through
and had those coolees, the valleys.
(♪♪♪)
- One of the things
that is an important part
of the protocol of Indigenous storytelling
is to work with community.
And the first thing you do is you go to community
and you make an offering, and you ask for permission,
whether it's to tell a story or to use a location.
So, that's what we did with Sioux Valley,
and the relationship just got stronger from there.
- We've never had this sort of thing happening here
in the community
and knowing that Sioux Valley's hosting
this crew that's doing a film here.
So, they're pretty excited about it.
Like, community members that are participating.
And I have young adult children myself,
and I went home at lunch
and I was speaking to my youngest son,
and he's like: "What's the Sixties Scoop?"
And he didn't know, right, what that was and...
So, we had a chat about it at lunchtime with my other son.
And he says: "Well, didn't you learn about that in school?"
So, it's bringing awareness about those dark times
to our younger generation that didn't know
those sorts of things took place.
(♪♪♪)
- It impacted a lot of people here.
When the young people
that were adopted of the reserve...
I guess it's quite...
It is a quite traumatic thing that they never experienced
because they're young,
they never left the reserve here, the community,
and, all of a sudden, they're taken to a different place
with different parents.
And they struggle growing up out there.
Once they come back or trying to come back,
it's very difficult
because they learned a different lifestyle
and they're coming back to a different home.
Some of them, I guess, they feel ashamed
to be coming home of what happened to them out there.
Some of them never want to come home.
I guess this will
open the eyes of a lot of people out there now.
(♪♪♪)
- We're finally here and I'm very excited
because this expands my heart to be here.
I feel like very, very emotional on this land.
- You were talking about smelling sweet grass...
- Sweet grass and sage.
So, we wanted to gift you with those from... - Miigwetch!
- ... on behalf of our community.
It's always a great honour to be gifted a star quilt.
It's one of a...
I guess something that's signatory to our community.
- I really appreciate this honour.
And I feel very...
- And it's always a tradition for the women to...
like, whoever they're gifting,
we wrap them in it, right?
- Oh, my God. - Ha-ha!
(♪♪♪)
- Thank you. Miigwetch.
(♪♪♪)
- Well, the Indigenous story
or the Indigenous narration is important.
Crew members Indigenous,
cast members
and the authenticity that the producers
want to bring to not just aspects of the story
and how it's told, but to inclusion.
And it warms my heart.
My name is Lorne Duquette.
My Cree name is Mistatim.
I come from the Cree Nation,
Mistawasis Nêhiyawak in Saskatchewan.
My particular connection to the Sixties Scoop is
I had a girlfriend,
and her and her two siblings were apprehended.
She was raised in a White home,
and her adopted brothers were older than her.
And she suffered sexual and physical
and mental abuse.
And she passed in October 2016.
And her two brothers passed before her.
This family,
the mother and her three children,
none of them had children, many of these siblings,
and of course, the mother had no grandchildren.
So, the Sixties Scoop...
literally wiped this family off the face of this earth
without...
any...
any offspring to carry on their name.
Like the dialogue my character says at the funeral,
my thoughts also turned to our children
who were lost and taken from us in so many ways.
And in this interview that I'm giving today,
I give my thoughts and my memory
to her and her siblings and her mother.
(chanting)
- So, this situation with residential schools,
Sixties Scoop,
it affected us big time
mentally, emotionally.
My name is Harold Blacksmith.
I come from Sioux Valley Dakota Nation,
otherwise known as Wipazoka Wakpa Oyate.
Full-blood Dakota Sioux.
I've lived here my entire 60 years of age.
Because of mom's experience in residential school,
she...
To be told that you're worthless,
being told that consistently on a daily basis,
had an emotional, mental effect on these people,
including my mom.
And...
And when the Sixties Scoop came in,
they took my brother.
My grandma and grandpa hid me, they hung on to me.
Back then, the law was:
okay, you're going to hang on to Harold?
You have to adopt him."
Ah, we grew up, we didn't have no TV or nothing.
Down south, we have a big lake down there.
It's still there yet.
And we used to go and fish out there and swim.
And my personal experience was
I've seen two of my cousins...
they were picked up.
I still remember the individual's name.
It was Mr. Malik, big tall guy,
Hindu guy, glasses.
He had a brown Ford Torino.
And those guys shared their story.
He took the door handles off from the inside,
so once he closed the door, the kids couldn't open it.
And he lured them with pop, candy.
And he wanted to...
I don't know what... I think the saying was
that he wanted to talk to their caregivers, whatever.
So, the boys got in
and he closed the doors on them.
And one of my cousins was, you know...
He had a look on his face.
And I think they knew that they were in trouble
when they got in the vehicle.
I'll never forget that look.
My grandma and grandfather told me in Dakota...
they said: "Don't talk to anybody,
don't talk to any strangers."
And about that time, you know,
you see this police vehicle out there,
the one bulb on top of the hood,
they were the kind of vehicles that were...
You didn't know who to trust.
And that's another big factor that today, modern day,
we don't talk about it
because there were trust issues back then.
There was a Mr. Malik and there were other people
that were collecting children.
And we didn't know who to trust, you know.
I'm sure today, if our leadership could do something...
Back then, they probably would have stopped
these visitors coming in.
They should have stopped them.
(♪♪♪)
- When you're telling
any Indigenous story,
for the most part, no one's ever gotten it right
unless they were truly
an Indigenous storyteller, right?
No matter how hard
people have tried to get it right,
they can't because the process of authenticating
all of the threads of the story is very complex.
And I take my 30 years in this industry
and 25 years of creating content.
I draw from that
and know that once you start a project,
you need what I call a circle of advisors.
We can't afford to not be authentic
because we're reclaiming these stories.
- With the consultations
and the back and forth about building the house,
it was a combination of shared experiences.
In the Ojibwe communities, they had...
what they would have is they would have these milk cans.
And that's where they kept their stuff
that they needed to keep cool.
I'm lucky that I remember my grandparents' house.
For me, it was one of the most loving,
peaceful, grounding times
that I've spent
when I was younger
because I would just lie on their bed...
Because they didn't have much in way of furniture.
My grandmother, Nokom, would be maybe sewing
while my grandfather, Numshun,
humming to himself.
And then for me, I was taking it all in.
So, we had many people that were contributing
to the look
and to the feel of all these different locations.
(Indigenous language)
From Muscowpetung First Nation
in Saskatchewan, near Regina
in the beautiful Qu'Appelle Valley.
And this is my beautiful niece, Jennifer.
Yesterday, when I walked onto the set,
it just brought back
some really good memories of childhood.
Even that clothesline with the clothes hanging
and blowing in the wind.
Yeah, this is how we lived back then.
That was our reality.
No running water!
Sometimes no electricity.
And...
But like I did say, you know,
we never thought of ourselves as poor
because we had everything we needed.
We were...
Our parents, our grandparents were able to provide for us.
- Every single department
worked with myself and Sharon
to... like, on every single detail
to ensure authenticity.
There was photos up in the corner I know
of my grandma on the house in the reserve
that the art department based Little bird houses off of.
My great-grandfather, Noel Pinais, built this house.
And, then, this is my grandmother,
Dorothy Pearl Pinais,
in the porch area of the house, Little bird house.
To have... My grandmother only lived till 2000,
so she never got the apology.
She never got anything that was deserved to her
for having endured residential school.
And seeing these photos on the walls
in some of the sets,
like, she gets to live on in the story.
And that's really special for sure.
And seeing how the house looks like her house
and how some of the characters are her,
just... but not her,
it's... I think it's...
Yeah, it means a lot.
Like, more than I ever could have thought
when Jennifer first asked me about this project.
I had no idea it would grow to be
such a project of the heart, for sure.
(♪♪♪)
- I am Tanya Brunel
and I am currently living in Winnipeg.
I'm Métis from the Red River region in Manitoba.
I grew up in a predominantly French community
southwest of Winnipeg.
And I'm a producer.
When I first came on board this project
and we were looking for places to start filming,
I was visiting communities all across Western Manitoba
and in every single community that I visited,
whether it was, you know, the person that was...
that I was talking to,
that was showing me the community,
maybe they were a survivor themselves
or they knew someone
who was coming home and reconnecting.
But every single community was touched by the Sixties Scoop.
(♪♪♪)
- Bonjour.
(Native language)
Obviously, right beside the Brokenhead River,
where I'm from.
My name is Gordon Bluesky.
I'm the ogimaakaan, the Chief of Brokenhead Ojibway Nation.
So, we're located about 60 kilometres
north of Winnipeg off of Highway 59.
Our community has about 700 members
situated within our community.
And we also have a large...
about two thirds of our total population,
living in urban centres,
like the city of Winnipeg.
My story starts with Sixties Scoop here in Brokenhead.
My two sisters,
we were apprehended in 1977
from our grandmother's house
just at the corner 59 Highway there.
For me, leaving the community here,
and when I was just a young boy, I don't remember a lot.
Obviously, I do have some small memories
of what we could only assume to be my grandmother.
But where my memories do start
is when my trauma started.
When I went to the city of Winnipeg
and I got put into foster care,
and the things that I've seen there, it just...
I've dealt with those things.
I've released a lot of that,
but I was carrying that trauma for a lot of years.
And when I left Winnipeg,
I was adopted ultimately in a small town
outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
You know, it was just like they put me on Mars.
(♪♪♪)
You had no idea who these people were.
We had to go stand
in front of a judge
and pledge allegiance and all that stuff
at a very young age.
I was five years old.
So, I had no idea what was going on,
but it was in the papers.
Native American kids are da-da-da-da-da.
We were always in the papers
on some sort of thing
because, again, I felt like we were
the only Indian children...
probably on the planet, it's how I felt at the time.
So, for me, it's just a matter of understanding
that the Sixties Scoop story isn't...
like, it's not unique, unfortunately.
There are thousands of us that were taken out of Manitoba,
thousands of us taken across the country.
There are still thousands that are out there
in the world right now, lost.
What we used to call the stolen generations.
I don't know what people call them now, but...
It's the Sixties Scoop.
- It refers to the mass apprehensions
and removals of Indigenous children
that started in the 50s
and then just as this exponential increase
in the 60s.
At that time, social work schools
were starting to pump out social workers,
most of whom were, you know, upper-class,
White, privileged people
and who never met an Indigenous person,
let alone gone into a reserve
or gone into an Indigenous home.
They didn't have the same sort of level of awareness
of, you know, the big picture
or even the fact that the government was attempting
to assimilate Indigenous people.
- The removal of Indigenous children
was the responsibility of child welfare.
In Saskatchewan, in particular,
there was a pilot project called AIM,
Adopted Indian Métis.
- This is a special adoption program.
For the past five years, the number of children
in care of the Department of Welfare
has been increasing by approximately 180 a year.
We have had great difficulty in placing
Indian and Métis children.
- Kids were being apprehended all over the place
and they just couldn't keep up.
And so they created this program
really to disseminate the need for adoptive...
foster and adoptive homes for Indigenous kids.
And so they advertised
and they took pictures of kids and posted in different...
You know, like the "Regina Leader Post"
and "The Star Phoenix"
and church groups and stuff like that.
I think that they were well-intentioned,
but again, you know, they didn't know...
they had no idea, really, what they were doing.
A BC social worker by the name of Bridget Moran
went public with her concerns and she said:
"We were putting children into homes
about which we knew nothing."
And then she concluded by saying:
"The biggest contributor to child abuse
in the province was the government."
Why were so many kids being apprehended?
There were kids that needed care.
There was social disarray going on.
I mean, people were raised in these total institutions, right?
Total institutions that were fraught with sexual abuse
and physical abuse and violence.
They came out traumatized, had kids.
It was kind of a disastrous mix.
But Indigenous people, we've always been blamed
for the conditions and the outcomes of colonialism.
- So, I was scooped at a central park
at age five years old
and made a ward of the courts through...
At the time, it was called Children's Aid.
So, me and my younger sister and brother
had been scooped out of the park.
We had been left alone
and a neighbour called, concerned for our wellbeing.
And luckily enough, we were able
to be placed all in the same home.
So, me and my two siblings grew up in the same foster home
for years and years and years.
But I had memories of my home.
I had memories of my mom.
I had memories of my dad and his home community.
And that was always in the back of my mind.
(♪♪♪)
I grew up in a Lutheran foster home.
Christian people.
So, coming into the community where it was so different and...
I had a real identity crisis
as far as religion and spirituality
and what I believed in.
And everything I thought I believed my whole life,
I questioned it when I came home.
(indistinct)
- Okay. Yeah.
- I made these bird...
- That's beautiful. Very nice, Uncle.
- I said: my name is Walter Greyeyes
and they're going to interview me,
but I don't know what they're going to talk about.
Some of the people that are coming back now,
they were taken away when they were younger.
They're coming home now
and they don't know how long they're going to be
and whether they're going to stay, you know.
I got a nephew in the States.
I got two nieces in the States.
I don't know where they are,
whether...
One is in Arizona,
one is in Pennsylvania, and their brother.
So, you know, I don't know if I'll see them again,
which would be nice.
And the Sixties Scoop here in 1968.
Did anybody here remember that big accident out here?
1968, right, Rick?
Where the casino is,
where all them crosses are on the road.
Nine people got killed on one night.
And they hit it on.
Then, after that,
that's when they start taking the kids.
Some went to the States.
Some went to different communities.
But most of the people that were older
looked after their siblings.
I've made the crosses.
I do that every once in a while.
Every four, five years, I'll make a whole set.
It's...
I think about the people, the kids,
and what they thought, what they did,
what they went through.
You know, that...
It must have been hard on them.
I know it's hard on me.
It's hard on everybody.
See... the fellow here,
that was one of them.
Her parents were killed on that road.
- I'm Mary Chief from Brokenhead
and they used my house for Little Bird,
the production of Little Bird.
Like, I don't really know about...
the children getting apprehended.
It's just that, like, it happened to my family.
When my parents were killed on that highway there...
(♪♪♪)
Yeah, it's really hard to talk about it yet
because there was no counselling.
Like, there was nobody to talk to us about it,
to get everything out.
And my...
There was 11 of us.
And me and my brother that was the oldest son...
I was 18 and he was 20... 20.
And then, we looked after them
because those ones from...
those nuns were trying to take...
They kept coming back and forth, back and forth,
and, well, they seemed like they're trying to help,
but, you know, as if they were trying to find
something wrong in the house, and then trying to take them.
I was in the hospital for a month,
and then I got my sister to look after them,
and when I came out of the hospital...
I was in there for about almost three weeks, I guess.
And then, when I came back, and I said:
"Where's Tuttle?"
That's his nickname.
And I...
And nobody didn't want to say anything.
So, I phoned this lady, the Child and Family...
that worker at the time.
And she said: "He's in Winnipeg."
So, I went to that office, and looking around for him,
like, I'm home now, I could, you know, take him home with me.
So, he was around, what,
about five, six years old at the time,
and then, all of a sudden, I found out
that he was adopted out into the States.
He was adopted out to a minister.
And when he came back...
he was so very quiet all the time, and...
he said he was abused.
(♪♪♪)
- I was an only adopted child.
I didn't have any of my bro...
I'm the oldest of seven.
I have three brothers and three sisters,
but we were all parcelled out all across Canada.
I had to...
Every time I got into a...
Whether it was alcoholism,
whatever kind of situation I was in,
it was just like from the time I was five,
I had to stand up and take beatings.
So, it wasn't any different than that.
I just thought: I gotta stand up.
I can't... There's nowhere else to go.
I have no one to run to. This is it.
I have to... Like I did when I was a kid,
I gotta take care of myself.
There has to be
happiness and acceptance
somewhere in this world,
but I have to fight for it.
It's not for free.
Once I get it, you have to fight to keep it.
And that's what I did.
(♪♪♪)
- One of my favourite lines
in the script,
in describing the Little Bird family
and how they all sleep together in their room.
And it still makes me cry to think about it.
There's love in this family.
And that's been a guiding thought,
you know, to me throughout directing this show.
And I wrote it on a paper, a big paper
in our production office.
I wrote: "There's love in this family."
(♪♪♪)
- Hey! Do you think that was funny?
- Today, the scene I will be playing is a huge scene
and it's the one when I get taken away from my mom
and I get put in a cop car.
- As a mother, like, you just can't even imagine
or fathom going through this.
And just seeing her play it
just puts me at an emotional state.
I'm usually crying watching these scenes,
these harder scenes.
So, it's just really... it really just, as a parent
and as aboriginal and just being affected,
it just really grabs a hold of you.
- I want to go with my mom!
- Hey! Hey! Hey! Go in our car!
Hey! No! Hey!
- You cannot do that! You can't do that!
- Ah! - What the hell is she doing?
- Running.
- Ah! No! - No! No!
No! No! - No! Give me my...
Ah! Ah!
- And cut! - Cut! Cut!
- How's the mark?
- The thing I'm thankful for the most
is that she's able to...
You know, they yell "cut!"
and she's able to go back to her happy little self
and it's not affecting her afterwards.
(♪♪♪)
- I think it's very, very, very fun.
And a lot of the people here try to help me,
and also, like my mom said,
how she tries to check up on me,
some people do that too.
Yeah.
- We have seen a lot of trauma on screen
when it comes to Indigenous people.
And it is a part of our story.
But I think that it's important
to tell the story
in a way that acknowledges the trauma,
but also respects the person that is witnessing it,
the audience, and the actors,
the people who are performing it.
Like, there really is nothing worse than going to set
and doing a traumatic scene as an Indigenous person
and not seeing one Indigenous person
on the crew.
So, we were just trying to come at everything
through the lens of recognizing
how the stories of trauma
might impact the person
on camera, on the crew,
in the audience.
It's not void of trauma,
it's just being careful about how you tell the story.
- I can't step on my shadow.
- Hey, you, are you hot?
- It's been really wonderful
to work with these young child actors
who are all growing up in their communities,
who are connected to community and culture and language
and are living full, joyful lives.
Because to have joy is a really radical thing
as an Indigenous person.
You know, we're not supposed to be here,
so the fact that we're even able to laugh
and to feel joy,
that is a very, very significant thing.
To think about
what our communities look like
when there are no children.
You know, what...
what is a nation without its children?
That's such a violent thing, you know.
(♪♪♪)
- I am an Indian chief.
I am an Indian father.
I am an Indian man who hurts
when I see our Indian children taken away
from their families,
their land, their traditions,
stolen and removed.
The Spallumcheen Indian Band has taken legal action
against the provincial government
to stop the stealing of our Indian children.
- Wayne Christian, he's a...
he was the chief of Spallumcheen Indian Band,
or Splatsin.
And he became chief at 19,
and his platform was child welfare
because that was the community that out of 300,
they had 100 children apprehended.
And one weekend, a social worker turned into...
and apprehended 38 kids.
- In my mind, the provincial government
has never really recognized our rights or even our culture.
There's always been a conflict with our culture
and the non-Indian culture.
And one of the quickest ways to assimilate a people
is to destroy the family unit and take the children
and force them to live in non-Indian homes
to learn a different value system.
And henceforth, in my mind, it's a planned type thing.
(♪♪♪)
- They stole our land.
They stole our culture.
They stole our language.
And now, they're stealing our children.
- They set up a caravan.
They marched on the provincial government.
And he did make a difference, yeah.
They became the only band in Canada
to have jurisdiction over their children.
- We want full control of child welfare matters
in our community, period.
Like our first preference is to rebuild the family.
Were trying to get the parent and the child back together,
and that type of thing.
And the second one is with relatives, and on and on.
The last resort, in our minds...
We have to get that child, in terms of a placement...
We'll put the child, as a last resort...
I think there's seven of them.
We'll place them with a non-Indian family
off the reserve.
Because that would be the last resort.
Or if that's the wishes of the parent, you know.
Like, we have to consider also
if it's the wishes of the child.
Those are the things we consider with our legislation
because we listen to our people.
(indistinct conversation)
- The experience here on Little Bird,
there definitely is a respect to the story,
to what it is we're telling.
Because some of the crew members don't realize
that that's my auntie, that's my uncle.
You know, that's right, in a way.
That's my auntie, my uncle that's crying.
It's the same for a lot of people on our crew.
And... So, it's also an educational point
for our non-Indigenous friends here.
So, there's a lot of on-set learning going on,
a lot of questions being asked.
We're more visible now
than we were ten years ago on film sets,
and I recognize that.
There were times I'd come, show up to work
and I'd be the only Indigenous person on set.
It'd be like, you know, this is like how Manitoba is.
And it's like, no, it's not.
There's a huge Indigenous population here,
you're just not seeing them.
- There is one, it's just the way it's written.
- Working with Maija and things like that,
she fights for what she wants.
And a lot of people might look at that
as just a director or whatever, fighting about something.
But myself, as a storyteller
and also as an Anishinaabe man,
you know, it feels so important for them
to fight for these stories or just for these takes.
- We deserve to lead the front in telling our own stories.
We deserve space in this industry.
Narrative sovereignty is a very tangible thing.
It is something that we can achieve as an industry.
It just requires a major shift in power structures.
And it needs to move beyond just us being,
you know, consultants on our own stories.
And I think we are seeing that shift.
(indistinct conversation)
- Having women on set,
just especially Indigenous women,
just makes me feel less fear.
(laugh)
Like, I try not to be intimidated by...
well, one, all the men, but also White men on set.
I've been...
I just love that I could probably be more myself
instead of being guarded
because you waste so much energy
trying to protect yourself and all this stuff.
Whereas when I'm with Indigenous women on set,
I feel like I can let a few walls down
and actually let real creativity flow.
I'm only just learning about the Sixties Scoop
and how that affected a lot of our people growing up.
But both my parents are residential school survivors,
so I have an idea of the trauma
and baggage, all that comes with.
I think it's important...
(sigh)
... that others hear about it.
Just because how are things going to change
if we can't get people to really empathize
with our history and all that?
- Here we go! We're rolling!
- Something that I've spoken about before is
the controversy of having
non-Indigenous women stepping into Indigenous roles,
casting someone who may look Native but isn't Native.
And some people are like:
"Well, does that mean that, you know,
"you can only play a Native?"
And I'm like: "Well, no, it doesn't mean that.
"What it means is that I carry those stories in my DNA.
"So, when I tell that story, it's going to be different
than somebody who doesn't have the life experience
of being brown or being Native."
Right now, I mean, we've lived where it's been like this,
where Native people in the country have been like this
and the mainstream have been here.
So, until it starts to go here,
it's really...
You know, like, then we can start talking
about playing roles as human beings.
But until then,
you know, we need to express ourselves,
we need to step into our light,
we need to reclaim those roles.
- Let's see. Look at me.
- I can remember as a kid, I saw Tantoo
and I was like: "Ah! That's a Native woman on TV!"
Because it was so rare to see ourselves.
And now, you know, this generation,
we've got APTN
and we've got Indigenous radio stations,
and it's not a big deal
to turn on the TV and see an Indigenous person.
But myself growing up,
that was so rare.
- I'm a young actor, obviously!
I'm new to this still.
I'm just...
I'm taking it all in.
And then, I'm also talking to my mom,
who's also watching it with me and she's an actor.
So, learning how she did things is so different.
So, I'm just grateful that I came in at this time.
- To know that what you do as an artist...
And this is what I tell my daughter:
is that as artists, we are only channels.
It's not about us.
It's not about me personally.
It's about the character that I am bringing through
and it's about the grandmothers and the ancestors
bringing that story through us.
(♪♪♪)
- There's a lot of people
with good intentions who want to support Indigenous productions,
but aren't necessarily willing to recognize
that the systems in place,
the power structures in place need to be dismantled.
Because, you know, we're having these conversations
around diversity and inclusion.
I'm so tired of hearing those two terms
because inclusion inherently centers
White voices, settler voices.
It just means that we get a little bit more resources.
But we're not witnessing actual change and action
on the part of settlers.
It's Indigenous voices who are continually having
to do that labour and to make that change.
- Quite often, we are put into...
these relationships where we have to partner
with a non-Indigenous partner.
And that's been a real challenge,
and it's been a challenge on multiple productions
because it's hard acknowledging privilege.
It really is.
And in order for these relationships to work,
you have to.
And you have to recognize
that if you say that you're here to support,
then you have to support.
And what does that mean?
Because, you know, when I sit here
and say I need support and I need help,
that's not weakness, that's...
So, it doesn't mean that I need you to step in
and fix something, right?
I'm saying I need you to step back and listen.
- There's been some upsetting experiences
that I've had on this production
that are reflective of being on the receiving end of paternalism
and being on the receiving end of distrust
and ultimately being on the receiving end of racism.
But that being said,
there's a lot of beautiful aspects to this production
in terms of the Indigenous team members
who are taking charge,
who are trying to change the way we do things.
And then also our non-Indigenous allies
who are part of this production
and who are doing their very best to change
how we do things.
- Four years ago,
my agent forwarded me just a page or two
that Resolution Pictures had developed on Little Bird.
And...
I didn't know about the Sixties Scoop and...
I read it and I called my agent, and I was like:
"I would do this if they want me to."
Like, the thought to me that there was a genocide
that wasn't known was... it was...
just stunning and heartbreaking.
Because there's such an important part
of my community story's that we get to...
It's known.
Esther is Jewish.
And so representing that was also important on the screen.
(chanting)
I'm using my Jewishness in order to, like, get those...
the minutiae of being a part of a specific community.
I haven't... I've never worked
on a show that's this meaningful.
I think this set has been...
I hope, for other people too.
It's been collaborative,
which has felt really good and beautiful to me.
I've been like: "Wow, we're really able
to collaborate on this."
And so, there's just a lot of people
who are trying really hard to make it better
and working together on it.
You know, that doesn't always happen.
Do you want to have that girl in the back?
- This whole story is very much
based on much of my life experience.
Also, my mother's,
being an Indigenous woman
coming into a Jewish family,
and how isolated that she felt
and how ostracized she was.
And then my own...
really my own psychology around identity.
I have never ever fit in
to what I'm supposed to fit into.
So, I think, you know, Esther is the same.
You know, I wanted that to be a part of who Esther is.
You know, just not ever really fitting into being Jewish.
The difference is she was adopted and is fully Indigenous
and I am actually Jewish!
Still don't fit in!
But...
And then, we brought in, you know,
real actual survivors
of the Sixties Scoop
to help us really shape the experience
through the lens of being adopted.
- My name is Nakuset.
I'm originally from Lac La Ronge, Saskatchewan,
Treaty 6.
However, I live in Montreal.
I run the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal.
I'm the executive director.
But my role on Little Bird was as a consultant
because I was adopted by a Jewish family in Westmount.
So, Jennifer thought it would be interesting
to have my point of view and...
I know that in, you know, Little Bird,
the family was very loving and connected.
My experience was not that.
So, it was important for me to be moved,
not necessarily all the way here to Montreal.
But, you know, I did have other siblings
that were older and responsible
and wanted to keep me.
But the idea was to remove me from the family,
put me into a White home,
change my name, change my culture.
I would lose my Indian status.
I would become part of... you know, like assimilated
and lose all my culture.
(♪♪♪)
- One day, social services were called.
I think they were called a number of times,
but the only time I remember is the last time.
And the police came,
and I remember, you know, seeing this.
It was the old style, you know,
like rounded black with the cherry on top,
that type of police car.
And we carted off to Kilburn Hall,
which was a receiving home at that time.
And we loved it there because, you know, it was like good food
and we loved to eat.
And we got treated well.
And then we were put in foster care.
And my foster care experience was a nightmare.
Abuse of all kinds there.
We were treated like animals. We didn't even eat.
I was never allowed in the kitchen.
And so the day that the social worker came to take me, I was...
The foster mother said: "Here, come in here."
And I sat there and I was so nervous.
She gave me milk and cookies.
And I was so nervous that I swallowed the milk too fast,
it came out of my nose.
That's what I remember!
And then, she's kind of, like, you know, fretting over me.
And it was very bizarre.
It's like: what's going on here?
And my sister came home from school.
I was still, you know... I was still like...
It's just my fifth birthday.
And she came home from school and I was gone.
I didn't see her again for 20... 22 years. Yeah.
(♪♪♪)
- Probably at about 12 years old, I began searching.
I didn't feel like I had it.
Like, I had a family.
I had a home, but I didn't really have a family, right?
So, I began searching
and I ended up going out to Vancouver,
where my birth mother lived.
And, you know, it was a bittersweet reunion as well.
My mom has some issues of her own
that she's still working on and struggling with to this day.
But I met her where she is, you know,
and I don't expect more from... from what...
from her.
I'm accepting of what she's capable of.
And you know what, she's funny.
She's great. She's a good cook.
She tries her best to look after us.
(♪♪♪)
- Esther's character is finding out where to go.
Like, she's been lost and driving around her community,
and she encounters someone who helps her figure out where to go
and where to find her family,
because they remember her.
- I think I might be from here.
- What's your name, then? - Bezhig.
I had siblings.
We were adopted.
- Follow that river.
Go right to the end.
And it's the long driveway on the right.
You can't miss it.
(♪♪♪)
- Like, people are trying to find their families.
People are displaced from their communities.
People don't have that feeling of I'm home.
Even though they are home.
This is their land.
You know what I mean? It's very complicated.
(♪♪♪)
- In 1995, I came back here
and I just was like a sponge, you know what I mean?
For... What was it?
Because all these years,
I was never known as what I was.
I was an Anishinaabe First Nation person.
So, that coming back home to this reserve,
I didn't know what I was coming into,
because all I had previous to that for understanding
what it was to be Anishinaabe was what was ever on TV.
So, of course, one of my younger years...
Tatanka, Chief Wahoo...
And those are all things
that, I think, people only understood to be Anishinaabe
or Native American down there,
because there wasn't much
that was available other than Hollywood.
(♪♪♪)
- When I was living in Westmount,
my biological sister, Sonya, turned 18.
She saw my name and she had been looking for me
since we were separated
because I was three, but she was six
and she clearly remembered who I was.
So, she started writing letters to me
since she turned 18
and I was probably about 15.
And my parents were just ripping up the letters.
They were not allowing us to have anything.
They wanted no connection.
Like, I had an incredible relationship
with my bubbie, not with my parents,
whereas Esther had a great relationship with her mother.
So, that was not the same, but it was really my bubbie
that pushed me because she was dying.
(clearing her throat)
She knew that when she'd died that I would have
no more connection with my family
and wanted me to have a connection
with my Indigenous family.
So, she bought my plane ticket
and sent me down to Winnipeg,
where I ended up meeting
one of my brothers.
He tried to adopt me,
but the government didn't really want that.
And then I met Sonya, which was awesome,
because that bond that we had when we were kids,
it never really ended.
(♪♪♪)
- The discourse of child saving,
it's like an overarching narrative
that can really subsume
lots of nefarious conduct.
"We're just trying to help these children."
That's the child saving narrative.
It's that, you know,
our families and our communities were in such dire straits
that we just were incapable of raising our children.
And so, the great White saviour came in
to rescue our children from us.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Even though it's called the Sixties Scoop,
I had adoptees say: "Well, I'm not part of that
because I was adopted in the 70s."
But it's like, no...
It spanned from the 50s
into about 1985,
when there was an inquiry here in Manitoba.
So, Edwin Kimmelman was appointed
to oversee this inquiry.
Because he wanted to find out, you know.
Indigenous people are complaining
about what's going on.
And so he interviewed social workers
and administrators and bureaucrats.
And he also looked at case files.
He was really concerned with what he found,
which was that there was...
The process of children being apprehended, it was...
Like, the case files were a mess, he said.
And his conclusion was that it was cultural genocide
because a lot of kids from Manitoba were
shipped down to the States,
the Midwest states.
- There are so many children that were taken from Canada
and adopted into the States.
Some of the adoptions that passed through happened
at, like, a McDonald's, right?
Like: "Hey, you like this kid? Take him."
They didn't necessarily check backgrounds
for the families.
Like, it wasn't important
if the families were able to support
or were even should-be parents.
- Justice Kimmelman said no more.
This is cultural genocide.
No more adopting Indigenous kids in Manitoba
into non-Indigenous families.
Just in Manitoba.
But other provinces were paying attention,
so they sort of took note.
And the moratorium was on the placement,
the transracial placement of Indigenous children
into non-Indigenous families.
(♪♪♪)
That doesn't mean that apprehensions
or child protection changed in any way.
It just continued.
And they're still continuing.
Only now, they just go in foster care
and they become part of that foster care economy.
- I want people to know
that it's still alive.
It's still happening.
It's trickled into our current CFS system.
If you look at the numbers of kids
that are in care right now that are Aboriginal,
it's still happening.
- It's like the system exists,
we just don't call it the Sixties Scoop anymore.
So, nothing has actually changed.
And I think that a lot of the families,
a lot of the mothers that were themselves in youth protection
now have children in youth protection.
It's really systemic racism.
Like, it is unbelievable how quickly
police, social workers,
anyone will pick up a child
and decide that their parents aren't worthy.
- I know so many parents that have had their kids taken,
and they have so many hoops that they have to go through.
And you know, they end up giving up
because that was their life.
And they've tried everything.
They've gone to groups,
they've gone to treatment,
and it's still not enough.
You know, the barriers that the workers put
in front of these parents that are trying their best
to get their kids back,
it's crazy to me.
- In the current system,
which I call the "Foster Care Scoop",
children are in foster care
and non-Indigenous people are getting a lot of money
to take care of our children.
It's a huge economy.
- If you put those supports in place for the parents
that are having issues instead of paying people
that aren't their family to take care of them,
you know, they can probably do a lot better.
Put those supports in place for them,
give them parenting classes,
help them with extra food
if that's where they're struggling.
- So, it's an ingrained system that we are not worthy,
which is why they took our children away
for residential school,
why they're taking away for, like, youth protection,
that we are not good parents.
And you become hypersensitive.
You're like: "Oh, my God, I hope I don't have
my kids taken away."
Because I worry about that all the time,
and I like to think I'm a good parent.
But you get these sorts of...
Well, you know, when I took, like,
Kistin to the dentist when he was a baby
because, you know, he had tooth decay,
I was sure they were going to take my children away
because I wasn't, you know, like, a good mom.
And I have gone to a doctor's office
where the doctor says: "Oh..."
Like, when Mahkisis had a diaper rash
and I couldn't do anything about it.
She said: "Oh, well, it's just a diaper rash,
so I'm not going to call youth protection on you."
That's a threat.
It's not a frickin' joke, but that's a threat.
So, I have to not react
because if I react, then I'm a hostile Indian
and then maybe that would give a reason
to call youth protection.
But that is our reality.
So, who am I to say
"That's really discriminatory, I'm going to report you"?
I'm just going to take my child,
take the prescription, walk out the door backwards,
smile and change doctors.
But it's in the system.
(♪♪♪)
- Because of the flames.
- Yeah. So, I was thinking about something like that.
- Yeah. - We'll see if it's not enough.
- This is a significant scene.
Our character Leo,
who feels so forlorn
and so angry and bereaved
that he does this,
burns his house down.
It's such a...
The episode is called "Burning Down the House".
So, when the light is exactly right,
then we're going to complete the special effects work
that has to be done before we light it up.
We put a lot of medicines in it
to just make it feel honoured
in this moment that we all built together,
and it kind of feels like a ceremony.
- As a crew member, the house holds
a lot of memories for us as well.
When I walked into that house,
I pictured the flats in Churchill, Manitoba,
where my grandparents lived, where I used to visit.
The exact same architecture.
You know, they were...
What a lot of people don't give
Anishinaabe people credit for,
is that we were the first with an open concept in a household!
So, that home there reminds me exactly of that.
And fire is life in our culture, as you all know.
Some people look at it like in a negative way,
but I look at it like it's a new beginning and things like that.
And it helps light another path.
- Rolling! We're rolling!
- This is 104 dash 45, take one.
(indistinct words)
- Three, two, one!
(♪♪♪)
(fire)
(indistinct words)
I don't think he would leave
while it's still burning actively.
- Okay. Okay.
- Yeah.
- Can you just turn a bit more to us?
- Glen, can you stay there?
Tayton, can you look down and then...
So, look at the fire for a few beats
and then look down and then walk straight to me.
And then come.
(♪♪♪)
Okay, good.
(♪♪♪)
- All the pieces... Look at all the pieces...
It's going, it's going.
- Look at that!
Oh, yeah, it's happening.
(Indigenous chanting)
- I feel very honoured to tell this story.
It's a huge responsibility.
Yes, we make stories for audiences, global audiences.
That's really important.
But I really make these stories for our people.
So, what it means to me is it's an offering.
It's an offering to heal,
to come together and heal
through witnessing something
and being validated, being reminded of your worth.
- Everyone watching her go?
- Yeah. We're getting it wide right now, but we will...
All of those little beats tighter on the gimbal.
- Okay, great.
- I think most people take family,
the familial circle, for granted.
And I don't.
It's sort of comparable to,
if you can imagine,
just being born out at sea
in just chaos, you know, and uncertainty.
And then anytime you're invited into a familial...
I'm speaking as an adopted person.
As soon as you're invited into a familial circle,
it's like being in this weird port
that you've never been to before.
You're a stranger in a strange land,
and the only place you feel safe is back out
in the chaotic sea again.
And now I take all that stuff.
I'm a frontline outreach worker
at Resource Assistance for Youth.
I help other...
I help kids that are in the same boat that I was in.
- Because when you put up a barrier to love,
it's really fucking hard to get it back.
And sometimes people don't ever get it back.
Yeah, because it's like an imposed attachment disorder.
That's really what the Sixties Scoop was about.
It imposed this attachment disorder on so many of us.
And it wasn't until I had, you know, as a young adult,
done about 10 years of therapy
that I actually sort of came into my body
and said: "Okay! What now?"
And that's when I went into social work.
- I'm going to feel air like Mary Poppins.
I felt air.
- Gideon, how has it been
working on the set?
- Good. - Yeah?
What was your favourite day?
- Ah! The part when I was doing under the bed.
- Why?
- I just like going under beds,
hiding like a monster.
- Ha-ha! That's awesome.
- Gideon has lots of fun on the set.
Ha-ha!
- And this is my last day.
- You did so well today.
- Okay, good...
Bye-bye, camera. Bye-bye, camera.
- Bye.
Bye, Gideon! - Bye.
- Nice working with you.
- It's just really inspiring
to see everyone just making
such an amazing pathway for us
and just guiding us who want to be
in that position as well in the future.
It's really inspiring for sure.
- And a young man who needs no introduction!
Gideon!
(acclamation)
- Our only job, as near as I can tell,
is to look after each other,
take care of our kids
and raise them up to be strong,
better versions of ourselves.
If we can do that for a couple of generations,
I swear to God, we'll get all...
We'll decolonize much faster if we just do that.
- I think we have a responsibility locally,
and not just the rhetoric
of "it takes a community to raise a child".
I think we got to start looking at the system
we have in place here locally
and say: what is that system doing to change
the impacts of colonization?
- I'm happy that our nation is taking back
our Child and Family Services agency
and really focusing on reunification
because I think that's so important.
That's what we need, right,
to heal and be healthy
and to have those next seven generations
in a good healthy mind frame.
That's what we need.
We need those supports and we need that encouragement
and the change of people's beliefs, their mindsets.
- So Child and Family Services have been
a priority for Sioux Valley for quite a number of years.
And like putting emphasis
on Dakota culture again and language, kinship.
You know, putting responsibility back on families
to take care of one another
and going back to those traditional teachings
where we all looked out for one another
and ensuring that we have jurisdiction over our children
and not only here
on Sioux Valley lands,
but throughout Canada through Bill C-92
and our own self-government agreement.
- Bill C-92 is now federal law effective January 2020.
And what it states in there is
that Governments and social workers,
social work agencies
are compelled now to support
the sovereignty of Indigenous families and communities.
What this means is that they cannot advocate
for our children to be placed in any other family.
We have jurisdiction, they cannot take our children.
End of story.
The priority of placement that we see in C-92, I think,
comes from Wayne Christian's... the by-law.
He was talking about this in 1980.
It shows us.
This is 1983, it's now 2023. That's a 40-year...
That's a 40-year battle
to get jurisdiction over our kids.
So, everybody is doing this massive adjusting
and, you know, I'm telling people, like:
just assert, assert authority,
assert jurisdiction because we never gave that up.
Yeah, we never gave it up.
So, big changes are underway.
Big changes, yeah.
- So, you're good for... Thank you!
(indistinct chatter)
- At this moment, we are shooting the very beginning
of the end of the entire series.
So, there obviously is a lot of choreography
because the story takes place over a couple of generations.
This moment is kind of the epitome,
it's the ultimate returning home
to a place that you have not been able to be at.
This moment is the ultimate coming home.
And it's a very brave thing, to go home.
It's one of the bravest things you can do.
(♪♪♪)
- When I came down here for that one-week visit
and then I ultimately went back to Pennsylvania
for about a month or two,
I just couldn't shake it off.
It was just something inside of me turned on.
And I really do believe that our children are...
And being our relationship as Indigenous people to the land,
there's a GPS, like a natural GPS system
that's inside of us.
That when I came back, when I came home,
I couldn't leave and I never left ever since.
I've been here for 27 years now.
The naturalness of coming home
and the first moment that I got back from the airport here
and got into our family home,
and I walked upstairs because I was trying
to hide from them for quite a long time.
I was just... My sister's...
I was here by myself.
And I said: "I need to take a shower."
And I ended up doing like an hour and a half,
maybe a two-hour shower.
Because, like, Jesus, there's a lot of people up there,
I don't even know who they are.
But as soon as I walked up the stairs
and I saw everybody in the room, they all looked like me
and it was the most magical moment of my life.
(♪♪♪)
- It is something that has impacted my life
right from the start of it.
And it's still impacting my life.
I struggle with my identity,
I struggle with my beliefs,
I struggle with, you know, knowing if I'm teaching my kids
the right things,
improving my merit.
I feel like I have to walk around
with my treaty card pinned to my shirt some days,
you know, convincing people
that I'm not an outsider... "26101!"
But I'm happy when people come back into the community
and they share their story.
You know, I just... I feel that instant camaraderie
and that kinship with them.
I know that they've had a long journey as well.
I connected with an elder in the community
and she gave me my Indian name,
which was really special to me.
She shared some information with me about my clan.
And, you know what, it is me, that is me.
I am an Eagle Clan.
I am a Spotted Thunderbird woman and that's who I am.
And I'm here to help.
I'm here to do good and I'm not going anywhere.
And, you know, now that I found my home,
I'm staying and that's that!
It's like... Yeah.
- I feel cemented here, you know, in Montreal
and my children are here in Montreal,
and this is our home.
And I don't think there should be any sort of, like, stigma
or one... like, it's...
Some people really do want to go back to the land
and be with their communities
and help heal those communities, right?
Being brought up in Montreal, I feel...
Like, I mean, honestly, we are in Westmount right now
and this is where the Mohawks used to have their ceremonies.
So, there's a peacefulness
that I always felt when I lived here.
Walking around here... I used to do a lot of walking
because I didn't want to be at home.
I did a lot of walking and I always felt that peace.
And I didn't understand what it was until I learnt
that the Mohawks used to have their trails here, right?
(sigh)
You have to create that home for yourself
where you are at peace.
And I think that's the sort of thing about home:
is that it's a peaceful place to be.
It's a place you want to be.
- Here we go! Background and action!
- So, the scene is that I am sitting at the campfire
with my adoptive mom and with my birth family,
like my birth brother
and his wife and their kids,
and my aunt and my uncle and my grandpa.
And my mom starts walking up to the campfire.
And at first, I don't realize it's my mom,
but just based on the look on everybody's faces
and kind of like the whispering that's going on
at the campfire...
And I get up
and I look at her
and it's just like this instant connection.
(♪♪♪)
And for me personally, I imagined it being like...
the person that you love the most in this entire world
is walking up to you after you kind
of already accepted that they're gone.
So, it's kind of as if they're dead
and they come back to life.
For me, that moment is what it felt like.
(♪♪♪)
- Cut! Thank you very much.
(indistinct conversations)
- Congratulations.
Ah!
It's been so long that the media, the television,
the movies, radio, what have you,
it was happening to, it came to us as passive,
as a passive audience.
And so now we're taking over,
we're being able to come into these producer roles,
into the writers roles, into actors.
And then you see all these young people
taking on a trainee position
or they've already been in the business for a while.
That makes my heart soar, you know.
And, you know, we have something to say.
We have stories to tell.
We've got teachings to pass on.
- You know, our survival,
our recovery isn't an attempt to revise history,
it's an attempt to live a good life in spite of history.
Yeah.
- You know, I think it is about coming home.
It's about welcoming those who were taken.
It's about welcoming what was lost.
And it's about, you know,
a deep relationship with home.
And home to me is the land.
It's the language, it's our culture,
it's my grandmother's laugh.
And I think that the story in and of itself is about that.
It's about reclaiming that relationship with home,
which is so many things.
Home is not just the land.
It's everything that we are as a people.
- I think First Nations people as a whole collectively,
we have to open a new page.
Sharing a story is very critical.
I felt good today. I do.
I feel good that because I'm going to use this
to be a better herald.
I don't hardly cry.
When I thought of my mom...
I love her.
She'd be proud of my daughters.
She'd be proud of me.
She'd be proud of my grandchildren
if she was sitting right here.
She's spiritually sitting right here beside me,
I know that.
So, when the tears came out of my eyes,
I knew this is the place to be.
Because you're pushing something out.
You're pushing something out of your body,
that negative energy.
And if our people, the oyate of this community,
shared their story from here...
boy, we would all learn to sit together and smile, shake hands.
(♪♪♪)