Where the Spirits live (1st America Film Festival, 1992)

1989, Canada
Where the Spirits live

Bruce Pittman

In 1937, a young First Nations (Canadian native) girl named Ashtecome is kidnapped along with several other children from a village as part of a deliberate Canadian policy to force First Nations children to abandon their culture in order to be assimilated into white Canadian/British society. She is taken to a boarding school where she is forced to adopt Western Euro-centric ways and learn English, often under brutal treatment. Only one sympathetic white teacher who is more and more repelled by this bigotry offers her any help from among the staff. That, with her force of will, Ashtecome (forced to take the name Amelia) is determined to hold on to her identity and that of her siblings, who were also abducted.

Where the Spirit live
Section: Worldwide Visions
Country: Canada
Director: Bruce Pittman
Language: Englisch OmU
Running time: 96min