We Were Children (2012)
• March 3rd, 2012 • 1h 28min
Documentary
Overview
For over 130 years till 1996, more than 100,000 of Canada's First Nations children were legally required to attend government-funded schools run by various Christian faiths. There were 80 of these 'residential schools' across the country. Most children were sent to faraway schools that separated them from their families and traditional land. These children endured brutality, physical hardship, mental degradation, and the complete erasure of their culture. The schools were part of a wider program of assimilation designed to integrate the native population into 'Canadian society.' These schools were established with the express purpose 'To kill the Indian in the child.' Told through their own voices, 'We Were Children' is the shocking true story of two such children: Glen Anaquod and Lyna Hart.
Make sure to check your pop-up blocker!!
Trailer
Similar Movies
Coffee: Songs of Smoke
Released on: 2014-02-01
Documentary
In the town of San Miguel Tzinacapan, in Puebla’s Nahua Mountain Range, a family lost its father. Hi...
The pink indian against the invisible beast: Noel Nutels' battle
Released on: 2020-03-15
Documentary
Public health physician Noel Nutels' ideas and the footage he made of Brazilian indigenous peoples b...
Son of Torum
Released on: 1989-02-05
Documentary
In the same vein as Meri's other documentations, this one takes advantage of the glasnost policy to ...
No Loitering
Released on: 2002-03-17
Documentary
An intimate portrait of teenagers trying to understand their world and their possibilities. The film...
Wood Mountain Poems
Released on: 1978-01-01
Documentary
In this short documentary, Canadian poet Andrew Suknaski introduces us to Wood Mountain, the south c...
Heartbeat of a Nation
Released on: 2022-09-25
Documentary
A short documentary that celebrates Dene cultural reclamation and revitalization, in which a father ...
Double M Country
Released on: 2023-05-17
Documentary
Carrie Davis was part of the child removal system near the end of the Sixties Scoop. With guidance f...
Kainai
Released on: 1973-01-01
Documentary
On the Kainai (Blood) First Nations Reserve, near Cardston, Alberta, a hopeful new development in In...
Sky Aelans
Released on: 2020-08-07
Documentary
Directed by nine Indigenous Solomon Island filmmakers, this is both a love letter and lament for the...
Amazonia: Healing with Sacred Plants
Released on: 2015-07-01
Documentary
Psychologist and anthropologist Alberto Villoldo talks with traditional healers of Madre de Dios, a ...
The Medicine of Forgiveness
Released on: 2001-01-01
Documentary
Benito Arévalo is an onaya: a traditional healer in a Shipibo-Konibo community in Peruvian Amazonia....
Voices That Heal
Released on:
Documentary
Herlinda Augustin is a Shipibo healer who lives with her family in Peruvian Amazonia. Will she and o...
Through the Repellent Fence: A Land Art Film
Released on: 2017-02-19
Documentary
The film follows Postcommodity, an interdisciplinary arts collective comprised of Raven Chacon, Cris...
Black Man's Houses
Released on: 1993-03-12
Documentary
In 1832 the government of Van Diemen’s Land sent the last Aboriginal resistance fighters into exile ...
Place of the Boss: Utshimassits
Released on: 1996-01-01
Documentary
In the '60s, the Mushuau Innu had to abandon their 6,000-year nomadic culture and settle in Davis In...
This Is the Way We Rise
Released on: 2021-01-28
Documentary
An exploration into the creative process, following Native Hawaiian slam poet Jamaica Heolimeleikala...
In Jesus’ Name: Shattering the Silence of St. Anne's Residential School
Released on: 2017-06-07
Documentary
A poignant all-Indigenous English and Cree-English collaborative documentary that breaks long-held s...
The Mountain
Released on: 2015-10-03
Documentary
For hundreds of years, Taiwan has been under different colonial rules. From the Dutch, the Spanish, ...