TIFF: Bones of Crows, and Canada’s cultural genocide

At the end of his recent tour of Canada, Pope Francis said that everything that happened to Indigenous children in the residential school system amounted to genocide. For a lot of non-Indigenous people, that can be a hard concept to wrap your head around. Bones of Crows is a film that wants to show people why the residential school system was cultural genocide.

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Bones of Crows is directed by Métis filmmaker and playwright Marie Clements (who also directed Red Snow and the Road Forward). The film depicts the experience of a Cree woman called Aline Spears (tenderly and beautifully played by Shuswap actress Grace Dove from the Revenant) as she and her siblings are forced to attend a residential school in Manitoba in the 1920s.

But the film doesn’t just show her experience in the residential school system, as it cuts back and forth throughout various parts of her life. Starting with her childhood in the 1920s, and taking her all the way to the 2000s, this film shows the lingering effects of the trauma she experienced, and how that trauma ripples through her family for generations.

This is not an easy film to watch, but it is a necessary film for all Canadians. It shows the strain in Aline’s life as the people hypothetically supposed to teach her actually diminish, terrify, and abuse her. The pain that Dove shows can be hard to watch and unrelenting. But that’s why we can’t look away from this, we need to understand the horrors that happened under the Catholic Church and the Canadian government.

Clements tells me that a big reason why she wanted to make this film was because “there’s never been a Roots of Canada.” Referring to the seminal miniseries released in the 1970s that showed the multigenerational trauma of American slavery, the show was a reckoning for several American viewers who didn’t realize the evil of slavery. With Bones of Crows, Clements really wanted to show the Indigenous perspective on the residential school system, especially because there aren’t “a lot of stories about residential schools told by Indigenous creators.”

With a intense story like this, it could be a very tough environment to work in for many people. Alyssa Wapanatâhk (from Robo Games), a Cree actress who plays Aline’s younger sister, tells me that great care was taken to ensure everyone was comfortable and safe on the set. There were numerous Indigenous elders “supporting us, and just helping anyone who needed a minute or a smudge or a prayer.” It was a collaborative effort ensuring everyone remained well with such horrifying, and true material.

One scene that truly highlights the main theme of the film, that residential schools were genocide, is when Aline’s husband Adam (played by Philip Lewitski from Wildhood) liberates a concentration camp in Europe during World War II. He sees numerous Jewish people laying seemingly lifeless, beaten and bruised. This causes him to have an anxiety attack and flash back to his time at a residential school, drawing a parallel between the two. The scene is tense and tough to watch, but that’s exactly why it must be shown. What Hitler did to Jewish people is genocide, like what the residential school system did to Indigenous cultures.

But for Grace Dove, one important thing she wants people to take away from this film is the commitment to showing Indigenous people living life as best as they can. She tells me one thing she loved about this film was “showcasing Indigenous love.” She says that was quite easy for her due to the natural chemistry she shared with her on-screen husband, adding that the two of them “had so much fun building that relationship.”

Bones of Crows is a complex film that shows the complex lives Indigenous people live. Lives filled with love and joy, but marked by so much tragedy brought on by a cultural genocide. You can watch this film at the festival, but there will also be an extended CBC miniseries that will air sometime in 2023.