Emotions ran high at the Ucluelet Community Centre main hall on Feb. 10 as community members gathered to watch the residential school drama Bones of Crows.
Written and directed by Vancouver-born Métis/Dene filmmaker Marie Clements, Bones of Crows depicts the life story of Cree matriarch Aline Spears told over several generations.
Secwépemc actress Grace Dove played the lead role as the adult Spears, Seneca/Mohawk French Canadian Carla-Rae was cast at the older Spears, and young Spears was depicted by actress Summer Testawich.
Bones of Crows takes viewers through a heart-wrenching journey as Spears is forced to attend residential school with her siblings. According to location manager Jerome Turner who spoke at Ucluelet’s Feb. 10 screening, much of Bones of Crows was shot in the interior B.C., with some scenes filmed at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.
“Everyone was smudged,” said Turner, noting that time was always set aside for this traditional healing ceremony before and after heavy scenes. Turner said the film was in production before the remains of 215 children found buried near Kamloops Indian Residential School was announced in the media in May 2021.
As an adult, Spears enlists in the Canadian military and serves as a code talker in World War II. She is sent to London, England where she uses her Cree language to relay secret information. After the war, Spears returns to Canada, where she settles in Toronto and raises her family, but remains haunted by the memory of residential school. Director Clements masterfully depicts the decades of abuse with flashbacks.
“We are in the time of truth-telling,” said Cricket Testawich, Summer’s mom at the Ucluelet screening.
Summer, who was born in Williams Lake but now lives in Penticton with her mom, told the West Coast audience that to help differentiate herself from the character, she imagined herself as different animals.
“When I was inside residential schools for Aline, I was a turtle into the shell, and when I was out riding the horse or with my family, I was a horse, riding free,” she said.
The U.S. Premiere of Bones of Crows took place on the same night as Ucluelet’s event at the 38th official Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The Indigenous owned and produced film has been touring in communities throughout Vancouver Island all month and is set to screen in Berlin, Germany at the Berlinale European Film Market and in New Zealand during the Maoriland Film Festival.
Bones of Crows will be in commercial theatres March 31 with streaming to follow after.
Support is available 24 hours a day for anyone affected by their experience at residential schools. The national Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line is available at 1-866-925-4419.
-With files from the Williams Lake Tribune
nora.omalley@westerlynews.ca
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