User reviews

Hello my name is Julian, I am currently 17 years old and born 1997 to let you know my age for the future. It was an experience to see my people back in the day and also sad. I am a Cree Native and never really got to learn my language fully, though I believe the people in my community gave up on that since we aren't getting classes for it now from grade 9 to 12. But focus on the movie, it was so sad and inspired me to make a story. Not going into full detail just that this movie is a must see for those who want to know our history and others who want to know from a different race. I believe race shouldn't matter, its sort of stupid to judge someone based on their skin. What if aliens exist? They would say we are stupid for fighting each other. Sorry if this review isn't mostly about the movie but I have to speak my mind on how it made me think through it, not to mention I don't want to spoil too much. Just watch it, trust me. Look at my ratings I find myself a movie critic and this is great.

At times, the interspersed interviews with the real life Glen Anaquod and Lyna Hart seemed intrusive. That's because the dramatizations were so strong. However, without this real life touch by the two children as elders, the overall impact of the film would have been lessened. The abuse (psychological, physical, spiritual, emotional, sexual, cultural) of the girl from Manitoba and the boy from Saskatchewan was so similar the viewer gets the sense that their experience was typical of all residential students at that time. The director, Tim Wolochatiuk, does a good job of bringing these parallels together. I also enjoyed the symbolism Wolochatiuk employed, especially that of Lyna's horses in her secret place. In the midst of the Idle No More and similar grass roots movements, this docu-drama is very timely. Showing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's parliamentary apology at the end of the show seemed to be done tongue in cheek, the irony apparent to all who know of Mr. Harper's plans to dismantle the First Nations people's rights.

This is and has been a problem with the church's no discipline or consequences they just move these sick monsters to other places... history never lies but it has a way of repeating itself until these monsters are stopped and exposed for what they really are instead of hiding behind God while committing these atrocities against innocent children.

I first viewed this movie at Haskell Indian Nations University during an event titled, A Time of Healing and Restoration, in November 2013. I have personally worked with the Native American people for nearly 20 years, and the historical accounts of the atrocities they endured were not new to me. Therefore, I anticipated the film's content with familiarity. However, this movie was new in that it so authentically retold the very real stories of two survivors of the atrocities so brutally committed. I found myself sobbing, unable to stop. I have long loved the Native American people with all my heart. To see this movie so candidly display these brutalities broke me all over again.

I firmly believe that every individual needs to see this film, especially lay people who are perhaps uneducated regarding Native American history, or who have an unresolved and stereotypical prejudice against them. What most common people do not understand is that these acts were not exclusive to Canada. The United States is equally guilty as well. This film, I believe, needs to be viewed with adult supervision. But nevertheless, it needs to be seen by anyone willing to acknowledge and digest what has happened. And by all means, above all, it should be shown in every educational institution.

The movie should evoke a response other than personal grief. It should awaken compassion and move us toward change: a place of acknowledgment, repentance, and restoration with the host people of this land (in both Canada and the US).

Again, this film was shown at Haskell Indian Nations University in November 2013, and the response was overwhelming by Natives and non- natives alike. Many Native American students did not realize what happened to their parents and grandparents because few speak of it for the grief they endure, and the educational system has either watered it down, omitted it, or re-written it. With this being said, the film was shocking evidence to their history, which opened many young eyes and hearts. This film even served as a beneficial tool to reach our state government, in which an official proclamation was made by our Governor on behalf of the Native American people - one which had never before been decreed.

I fully support the film and its endeavors. The acting was superb; the storyline gripping and accurate; the filming professional and artistic. The testimonies are real and untarnished. It's time they be heard. May God bless it to the fullest extent of its reach.

Really heartbreaking to see the true story of the extreme conditions of child abuse in Indian Schools by christian priests. Children forced from their parents into hellish conditions under the false truth that they were to become better people, like their perpetrators thought themselves because of a faith they only misused for their own benefit. People should see this movie. With child abuse still happening all over the world. There should be a lot more focus on getting an end to violence and abuse from people with power over innocent children and people. Sad story. Though very well made.

Truly sad story on what happened to these people. More people should watchthus and be aware of the history aboriginals had to suffer through.

Tear jerking and anger provoking. This half dramatic part documentary tells how the Canadian government tried to eradicate a race out of their society by making aboriginal children leave their homes and attend church run boarding schools.

Some of the nuns are God crazy and some of the priests put the children through physical, emotional and sexual and mental abuse.

2 of the 80'000 survivors narrate this harrowing true story that only ceased in 1996

This "documentary" plays fast and loose with the facts. It's typical of the current fashion for portraying the victim/oppressor narrative. Canadian native children were not forced to attend residential or day schools. Only about one-third of them attended any schools at all. Many were orphans. Many were registered and dropped off by parents and family members who were out on the trapline or hunting in seasonal rounds. Many schools were part of treaty negotiations and were demanded by the native signatories to treaties. By the time of the allegations in this movie most schools were being run by the government and had many indigenous teachers and administrators. Most alleged sexual abuse at schools were perpetrated by indigenous students on other indigenous students. Most "abuse" was pretty standard stuff that schools considered to be standard in the day, straps, rulers, et cetera. Indigenous language speaking was not forbidden. Schools were the places were heretofore unwritten languages were given alphabets and dictionary representations. Many teachers (both native and non-native) had working knowledge of the various languages their students spoke. It's a shame the legacy of earnest teachers and administrators is tarnished in this way.

All I can say about this movie is it is heartbreaking. It is a very honest but sad and truthful movie about how lives were taken and how identities were stolen from the indigenous children.

Being forced to change who you were and they took every inch of their pride and dignity.

This movie will make you cry and break your heart, but it's important we learn about the indigenous culture and what they went through.

We must heal in order to move forward.

Pediphiles in the Catholic Church. Cruelty in the Catholic Church. This time innocent Native American children are victims of terrible crimes. Taken from their homes and abused in the name of God. These were not Gods people. Quite the opposite. Their reckoning must have been blazing.

Canada has proven that they are no better than other countries that use slavery and oppression as a passage of rite to those that have their own culture and beliefs. Hearing the heartbreaking story of two survivors that lived through the government funded schools known as Indian schools will make you angry but empathic towards those that were forced to attend such horrible institutions.

It is a confirmed fact that priests rape young children so whoever believes that this never occurred are delusional and sadistic individuals. Learn your history because colonizers will twist the truth!!!!!!!!!!

Just in case you thought Canada was full of the only sinless, benevolent white people in the world, back it up. It seems they were on the same page as Australia with snatching indigenous children from their homes and "civilizing"/"assimilating" them. Canada did it with help from the Catholic Church in order to make them good Catholics as well. If you're unfamiliar with the Catholic Church's track record when it comes to youth, watch "Mea Maxima Culpa," "Twist of Faith," "Judgment," or "Deliver Us from Evil."

"For over 130 years, Canada's First Nations children were legally required to attend Government-funded schools run by various orders of the Christian faith. Beginning in the late 1850's, over 150,000 Aboriginal children were legally forced to attend Indian residential schools in Canada. The schools were part of a wider program of assimilation designed to integrate the Aboriginal population into 'Canadian society.' At their peak in the 1950's, there were 80 Indian Residential schools across the country. The last Indian Residential school closed in 1996."

"We Were Children" is the story of two survivors: Lyna Hart and Glen Anaquod. They candidly, and sometimes tearily, speak of the fear and the abuse they suffered at their Catholic schools from general meanness to imprisonment to rape. Don't take it from me, let the survivors speak.

Telling enough was Glen's statement:

"I don't know what kind of god they have that loves to hurt another human being. Their understanding of god is a kind person, you know, that's forgiving. And all the things they did to us, what kind of god do they have?"

While Lynda Hart said:

"I believe that they were trying to annihilate us. And they couldn't because what they did to us, and everything we've had to live through, only made us stronger-- made us more determined."

"We Were Children" is a mixture of documentory and feature film, which is in the form of two narrators, also victims of the tragedy-- Glen Anaquod and Lyna Hart-- dictating the drama's storyline. The movie is for revealing the tragedy, but also only for it. Seldom historical background or textual explanation is shown. Of course the event is worthy of more awareness and the historical justice should be prevailed, the voice of the Indigenous people should be heard, too. However, the movie simply give up its form as a MOVIE, only a monologue of the evil side suppresses the ignorants is presented. Only the narrations dictating the actors in the drama--a mimesis of the oral discription-- without suspense or dialectical spaces is left. Afterwards, no story is worthless to be told; only those didn't told properly.

I could not stomach these fragments. This movie will bring you to tears and disappointment with this past history of Canada that no one knew about until recent years. Should this movie be for truth and reconciliation? Never.

We should always talk about this.

For the first time in my life I'm embarrassed to be a Canadian... I stumbled upon this movie by fluke. I actually haven't even watched the entire movie as I'm writing this right now. I keep having to pause it and cry. I always heard of residential schools growing up but I never really took the time to understand what it really meant. Which I'm embarrassed about. The recent discoveries in British Columbia has literally horrified me and cuts my heart. And this movie proves that these poor children were literally in hell. It horrifies me. I really hope all those lost souls are safe and sound and happy.

As an Oji-Cree Métis mother, daughter & granddaughter, and a survivor of intergenerational trauma, I hope that everyone will attempt to watch this program.

It is about the tragic legacy of residential schools, told by two survivors who endured unthinkable horror from the time they were so young.

If You can imagine the families left behind, imagine the fate of thousands of missing children who never returned home, and the survivors of these prisons passed off as schools, then please share with another.

All Peoples from this country called Canada must be a part of understanding the truth so hat healing becomes possible.