Where the Spirit Lives (1989)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Bruce Pittman

Writer:

Keith Ross Leckie (writer)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A young Native Canadian (First Nations person) fights to keep her culture and identity when she is abducted to a residential school.

Plot Keywords:

School | Boarding School | Native American Residential School | Canada | Racism

Awards:

7 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Michelle St. John	...	Komi / Amelia
Kim Bruisedhead Fox	...	Anataki
Marianne Jones	...	Komi's Mother
Gus Chief Moon	...	Ka - moos - ee
Clayton Julian	...	Pita / Abraham
Margaret Cozry	...	Grandmother
Marge Fox	...	Anataki's Mother
Ron White	...	Taggert
Ann-Marie MacDonald	...	Kathleen
Sean Mulcahy	...	Priest
Sam Malkin	...	Mr. Crawford
Doris Petrie	...	Miss Weir
Chapelle Jaffe	...	Miss Appleby
Tina Louise Bomberry	...	Asst. Supervisor #2 (as Tina Bomberry)
Barbara Wheeldon	...	Matron

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario)

Company:

Amazing Spirit Productions Ltd.

My Father went through what happened in this Movie

My Father is a Micmac and so am I. I'm 16 now and when i first saw this movie it was the early 90s. i must have been about 4 or 5 years old. The movie is based on Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Nova Scotia, Canada. My father was in that school for 6 years, longer then other people who where there. My dad isn't fixated on what happened while he was at that school, unlike other people. Some people that went to shubie school for 6 months talk about all that bad things that happened to them like they were there for 10 years. You'd never even know that my dad went there. When he does talk about shubie school it's not about the horrors of what went on, it's mainly good things like how the kids there used their slices of bread like money or how if you touched someone else food it became yours. That only bad thing he ever said about that school was that the food sucked so you had to eat it really fast. To this day he still eats his food fast, it doesn't even touch the plate and it's gone.

What i want to say is that i think this movie did an amazing job at portraying what went on behind the walls and that the Catholic church is messed up for thinking that they can "fix" everybody else to their standards. What happened in those schools is on some degree like what Catholic Priests molesting those children. For anyone who would really like to know more about Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, you should read "Out of The Depths" by Isabelle Knockwood. For rating i give this movie a 10 out of 10.