It is set in Alberta, Canada, beginning in 1937 and tells the story of a Kainai Nation girl abducted from her family and sent to a residential school further north in Alberta.
Ashton-Komi (Michelle St. John) is the young girl legally kidnapped from her family along with her brother, Pita (Clayton Julian), by the Indian Agent, Taggert (Ron White). She and her brother are sent to a fictional Anglican-run residential school called King George V Indian Mission. It's run by a hard-nosed Anglican priest, Rev. Buckley (David Hemblen), whose goal is to shake the dirt of the Indian culture from his students' roots so that they can grow into Anglo-Saxon Canadian culture. A new English teacher, Kathleen Gwillimbury (Ann-Marie MacDonald), is appalled by much of what she sees at the school, befriends and assists Komi, but does not visibly protest the ill-treatment. Graham Greene makes a cameo appearance as Komi's father.
The story follows Komi's life at the school, which includes an arbitrary change of her name to Amelia, denial of the right to speak her own language, physical strapping, observing the sexual mistreatment of a fellow student by Miss Appleby (Chapelle Jaffe), a failed escape attempt, believing lies about the fate of her parents, and seeing the death of her best friend, Rachel (Heather Hess), after another failed escape.
The acting is strong, especially from Michelle St. John, Ann-Marie MacDonald, and David Hemblen. Unfortunately, this was a fairly low-budget film made for television. Some parts of the story would have benefitted from a bit more detail. Nonetheless, this is a striking immersion into the residential school experience and has not lost its power in the 30 years since first televised.
Ashton-Komi (Michelle St. John) is the young girl legally kidnapped from her family along with her brother, Pita (Clayton Julian), by the Indian Agent, Taggert (Ron White). She and her brother are sent to a fictional Anglican-run residential school called King George V Indian Mission. It's run by a hard-nosed Anglican priest, Rev. Buckley (David Hemblen), whose goal is to shake the dirt of the Indian culture from his students' roots so that they can grow into Anglo-Saxon Canadian culture. A new English teacher, Kathleen Gwillimbury (Ann-Marie MacDonald), is appalled by much of what she sees at the school, befriends and assists Komi, but does not visibly protest the ill-treatment. Graham Greene makes a cameo appearance as Komi's father.
The story follows Komi's life at the school, which includes an arbitrary change of her name to Amelia, denial of the right to speak her own language, physical strapping, observing the sexual mistreatment of a fellow student by Miss Appleby (Chapelle Jaffe), a failed escape attempt, believing lies about the fate of her parents, and seeing the death of her best friend, Rachel (Heather Hess), after another failed escape.
The acting is strong, especially from Michelle St. John, Ann-Marie MacDonald, and David Hemblen. Unfortunately, this was a fairly low-budget film made for television. Some parts of the story would have benefitted from a bit more detail. Nonetheless, this is a striking immersion into the residential school experience and has not lost its power in the 30 years since first televised.