Film: Journey Towards Reconciliation

Film: Journey Towards Reconciliation

As part of The Scene: Youth Media Festival, a curriculum-centred educational festival that targets secondary schools in Saskatoon and the surrounding area, Women's and Gender Studies and the Aboriginal Student Achievement Program (ASAP)  will be presenting is a screening of the documentary film, Journey Towards Reconciliation. It will be followed by a Q&A session with the directors Sharon Somer and Paige L’Hirondelle.

When: March 9, 2:30 to 4 p.m.
Where: Neatby-Timlin Theatre, Arts 241
There will be a Q & A after the film with directors Paige L'Hirondelle and Sharon Somer

About the film
In 2014, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada held their seventh and final national event in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (known as Edmonton) to gather testimony from Indian Residential School Survivors. This nation-wide acknowledgement of the atrocities that took place in these schools was a difficult but important step towards healing in a journey of reconciliation in Canada.

Miyo Pimatisiwin Productions supported a group of Indigenous youth in their personal journeys as they learned about the history of the residential schools and their personal connection to the legacy. Through the lens of a camera, these young people explore intergenerational trauma, Indigenous resistance and resilience. The youth engaged in an act of reclamation in Edmonton's Grandin LRT Station, under the mentorship of artists Aaron Paquette and Sylvia Nadeau. The handprints of Indigenous youth are immortalized in the station to remind citizens that they are still here. And so began their Journey Toward Reconciliation…

Paige L'Hirondelle
Paige is from East Prairie Metis Settlement but currently lives in Edmonton. She is a Metis dancer and often performs showcasing her Metis heritage. She is majoring in Native Studies and trying to minor in creative writing at the University of Alberta. Her goals are to be a social worker and a role model for Indigenous youth, to show everyone that you can make it if you set your mind to it.

Sharon Somer
Sharon was born in Edmonton and is Cree from Long Plains First Nation, Manitoba. She is currently enrolled in Native Studies at the University of Alberta.