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Spirit to Soar

Directed by Michelle Derosier and Tanya Talaga
Canada, 2021 (documentary, 46 minutes, colour, Anishinaabemowin / English)

Film Description:
"Between 2000 and 2011, seven First Nations high school students in Thunder Bay died. Five were found in rivers surrounding Lake Superior. All were forced to leave their homes in order to attend school. Anishinaabe/Polish Canadian journalist Tanya Talaga brought international attention to this tragedy through her award-winning non-fiction book Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City. She cannot separate their story from her own, acknowledging, 'I cannot pretend to know what it is like for the parents of the seven to lose a child, but I know something about what it's like to be a bit fractured.' In June 2016, a jury concluded its inquest into the deaths and put forward 145 recommendations. In the years following, Talaga returns to Thunder Bay and her ancestral roots to talk with the family members, Indigenous community leaders and youth whose resilience in the face of unjust colonial systems provide a path forward."
-- Alexander Rogalski (source)

Film Credits (partial):
Written by: Tanya Talaga
Produced by: Nida Marji, Shivani Srivastava, Rose LeMay, Tanya Talaga, Stuart Coxe
Cinematography: Sean Stiller
Animation: Justin Stephenson
Film Editing: Eui Yong Zong
Music: Ansley Simpson
Production Company: Antica Productions
(sources)

Notes about Spirit to Soar

(sources)

Quote by the Director

"That was so important to both myself and my co-director Michelle Derosier; to show people what we see when we see our land. We see this immense beauty. The beauty of the trees, the forest, the air, the sky, the rivers, and Gitchi Gami [Lake Superior]. To us we really wanted to make sure that we had represented the water and the land as characters because they're real. They are a part of us. That's what we were trying to convey in the film [Spirit to Soar]."
-- Tanya Talaga (source)

Bibliography for Spirit to Soar

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites


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