Where the Spirit Lives
Where the Spirit Lives
Release: 1990-06-06
·Runtime: 96m
·★ 6.0
Drama
In 1937, a young First Nations (Canadian native) girl named Ashtecome is kidnapped along with several other children from a village as part of a deliberate Canadian policy to force First Nations children to abandon their culture in order to be assimilated into white Canadian/British society. She is taken to a boarding school where she is forced to adopt Western Euro-centric ways and learn English, often under brutal treatment. Only one sympathetic white teacher who is more and more repelled by this bigotry offers her any help from among the staff. That, with her force of will, Ashtecome (forced to take the name Amelia) is determined to hold on to her identity and that of her siblings, who were also abducted.
Production Countries
Canada
Production Companies
Atlantis Films
CBC
Amazing Spirit Productions Ltd.
Cast
David Hemblen
as Reverend Buckley
Michelle St. John
as Komi / Amelia
Doris Petrie
as Miss Weir
Chapelle Jaffe
as Miss Appleby
John Friesen
as Mr. Babcock
Sam Malkin
as Mr. Crawford
Patricia Collins
as Mrs. Barrington
Graham Greene
as Komi's Father
Ann-Marie MacDonald
as Kathleen
Ron White
as Taggart
