Manitou Intentional Learning Community Presents
Frontrunners/Niigaanibatowaad
This movie raises awareness about residential schools and how churches are responding and encouraging the building of right relations.
Friday, September 18th 2009 at 7pm
St. Peter’s United Church,
York St. Sudbury
Please join us. For more information contact [email protected].
Frontrunners (Niigaanibatowaad) is a powerful drama based on true stories told to playwright and film maker Laura Robinson by the 1967 Pan Am Games torchrunners. The story is narrated by Thomas, an Aboriginal residential school survivor now in his 50s. In 1999 he is invited to finish a run with the Games’ torch that ended four hundred meters short of the stadium in 1967. The invitation revives painful memories and leads to the first steps on the path of healing.
The movie examines a painful period in our history, raises our awareness of the legacy of residential schools and challenges us to discover ways in which we can work together to build right relations. The movie is about 45 minutes long and will be followed by discussion. Please note that the movie contains scenes of implied physical and sexual abuse and is not suitable for children under 14. Frontrunners is shown in support of the work of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission and with the aim that there will be no one who can say, “I never knew.”
Frontrunners premiered in 2007 on APTN. You can see a trailer at http://www.buffalogalpictures.mb.ca/production/television/front_runners/ or select “Frontrunners” under Subscriptions on the United Church’s You Tube channel located at http://www.youtube.ca/unitedchurchofcanada.
Related files:
Download the FrontRunners/Niigaanibatowaad Poster (PDF)