The stories of abuse are well known. Some children died in the schools. Many others were emotionally scarred for life. There's a line in the film that says, "There are two ways to conquer a nation: you kill the people, or you take away everything that defines who and what they are."
Indian people will tell you the boarding school experience is still with them, years after the schools closed. It might be a factor in rampant suicide rates on many reservations, according to Producer Christine Walker.
3 comments:
Writerfella here --
As with almost every other article written on this subject and in this vein, writerfella notices one peculiar and particular lack. Read the article carefully (while noting also that DREAMKEEPER was a TV miniseries and NOT a movie) and see if writerfella's observation is correct. You read about the actors, and the director, and the producer, and the executive producer, and even a technician. But not once, in fact never at all do you read about the writer of the script or screenplay from which the production derives. Now it could be that the director also wrote the scenario but that is rare. As writerfella discovered in his 1993 collision with something calling itself "The Native American Producers Guild", writers were viewed as unimportant to Native filmmakers UNLESS those writers also intend to make their own films. Look over the article: who wrote the film and where is the author? It is a fictional story, after all, and not a documentary. Then again, even documentaries have to be written...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
That's a common complaint about all Hollywood stories. Namely, that they credit movies and TV shows to the producers, directors, and actors but not the writers.
Writerfella here --
Yes, common complaint indeed, which means that Native filmmakers are little differing from the film industry about which they cry and rail and rant and rub ashes on themselves. Is that supposed to be some sort of recipe for success, emulation of the big guys, right down to and including the three-martini lunches?
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
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