If National Day for Truth and Reconciliation inspired you to pause and reflect and the lives affected by Canada’s cultural policies, take a moment to stop and listen to some of the important stories like those shared in WaaPaKe. Now streaming from the National Film Board of Canada, WaaPaKe offers a deeply personal work from Dr. Jules Arita Koostachin as she traces the impact of generational trauma wrought by the residential school system.
Koostachin invites her mother, Rita, to sit down and share her truth as a residential school survivor. The pain of the experience shakes her to this day, but she bravely shares the abuse inflicted upon her. Other members of the family and close friends share their stories, while Koostachin considers lives lost, like her brother, who died quite young. He might not be an official statistic of the residential schools’ toll, but they arguably claimed his life. The words here are palpably difficult and, while emotional, WaaPake observes a family healing through the process of speaking things out. There’s a clear sense of unburdening as they confront pain to heal.
“There’s great vulnerability here as Koostachin and her family, including her son Asivak, share how they’ve collectively felt Rita’s heartache,” I wrote while reviewing WaaPaKe during VIFF last year. “With pain comes healing, though. One participant, a counsellor named Maisie whose siblings and father shared Rita’s experience, explains that the route to breaking the cycle of lateral violence comes by confronting intergenerational trauma, by speaking up. The experience might be pure hell for all involved, but the process of making WaaPaKe proves palpably cathartic.”
Watch WaaPaKe below from the NFB.
It also screens at Toronto’s Rendezvous with Madness Festival on Oct. 25.
WaaPaKe (Tomorrow), Jules Arita Koostachin, provided by the National Film Board of Canada