This November, join Rhode Island PBS in commemorating Native American Heritage Month with three back-to-back films: Independent Lens: Dawnland, First Light, and Dear Georgina.
Produced by the Upstander Project, each film digs into the brutal history of settler colonialism and how its impact has created social issues still affecting Native peoples today. Through grappling with harrowing truths and redefining reconciliation, the films emphasize Native peoples’ cultural survival and much-needed healing in a nation founded upon their significant contributions.
The Upstander Project is an educational and filmmaking collaborative. Created in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2009, the organization encourages decolonization and challenges indifference to injustice by raising awareness of the need for upstanders.
Along with these three films, WSBE Rhode Island PBS will air the PBS series NATIVE AMERICA. For more information about the four-part series, click here.
Independent Lens: Dawnland - November 29 at 9 p.m.
For most of the 20th century, child welfare authorities have been removing Native American children from their homes. As recent as the 1970s, one in four Native children nationwide were living in adoptive homes, boarding schools, or non-Native foster care, with many facing mistreatment and erasure of their cultural identity.
In Maine, the first government-sanctioned Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the United States launched a historic investigation. The feature-length documentary Dawnland follows Native and non-Native commissioners as they travel across the state to gather testimony and bear witness to the devastating welfare practices impacting the Wabanaki people.
First Light - November 29 at 10 p.m.
Before the release of Dawnland in 2018, the short film First Light (2015) began to look at the government’s harmful practice of removing Native American children from their homes. Documenting the act from the 1800s to today, First Light tells the story of truth-telling and healing for the Wabanaki people and child welfare workers in Maine.
Dear Georgina - November 29 at 10:15 p.m.
Dear Georgina follows the story of Passamaquoddy elder Georgina Sappier-Richardson. At the age of two, Georgina was removed from her home and Passamaquoddy community in Maine. For sixteen years, she faced abuse and terror in four different foster homes. Now a grandmother, Dear Georgina follows her attempt to re-integrate herself into a community she barely knew and fill in the blurry outlines of her identity.
The short film is a follow-up to Dawnland (2018), where Georgina shared a portion of her story of surviving foster care.
[Photo credit: Ben Pender-Cudlip]
WSBE Rhode Island PBS transmits high-definition (HD) programming over the air on digital 36.1; Cox 08 / 1008HD, Verizon FiOS 08 / 508HD, and Full Channel 08; Comcast 819HD and Verizon FiOS 18 / 518HD; DirecTV 36, Dish Network 36. Live stream the full schedule within the broadcast viewing area at watch.ripbs.org/livestream.
