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Film Screening: The Nature of Healing
September 30, 2023 @ 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm
To acknowledge the histories and honour the lived experiences of residential school survivors on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Guelph Museums and the Guelph Film Festival co-present a public screening of The Nature of Healing, in collaboration with JamLab Productions.
Following the screening, we will welcome five Survivors whose stories are shared in the film: Elders John Elliott and Bud Whiteye and Grandmothers Dawn and Roberta Hill and Sherlene Bomberry. They will be joined by Faith Howe/JamLab Productions, Kimber Sider/Guelph Film Festival, and Dawn Owen/Guelph Museums for a post-screening dialogue.
Visitors are encouraged to spend time, before and after the film, with the exhibitions: Where the Rivers Meet; No Word for Art: Exploring the Indigenous Roots of Creativity (curated by Naomi Smith, Chippewas of Nawash); Unsettling The Grand: Legacies of Settlement in the Grand River Valley, from 1700 to the Present Day; and Light A Candle To Curse The Dark on view at the Civic Museum.
Tickets are available on Eventbrite.
About the Film
The Nature of Healing is the spoken truth of seven Survivors of Mohawk Institute, Canada’s first and longest running Indian residential school. From victim to survivor to activist, this is a story of resistance, resilience, and a healing path.
What began as a simple conversation about the Mohawk Village Memorial Park, which the Survivors have been building for 10 years, became a full feature documentary. When completed, the Park will commemorate the 15,000 children who were taken from more than 60 communities. They lost their families, communities, culture, identity, and, for some, their lives.
The 139 residential schools, operated in partnership with the Canadian Government and Churches, were Canada’s sanctioned system of dehumanization: neglect, brutality, and child abuse in all its forms, in order to obliterate the Red Nation footprint.
The Elders, Grandfathers, and Grandmothers who speak out now do so not only for themselves, but for the thousands of children across Turtle Island who never could.
