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I should just offer a warning here before we get started.

The documentary film we're going to talk about today has some really disturbing stories, references to suicide and infanticide and sexual abuse.

Do you remember in 2021 when the news broke about the discovery of dozens of unmarked graves at an

Indian residential school in British Columbia, Canada. Well, the story triggered

a wave of stories about these places and multiple claims of sexual and physical abuse of

native children. The investigative journalist and filmmaker Emily Cassie called her friend

Julian Brave Noise Cat. She said she wanted to make a film. Did he want to help? Julian was reluctant.

He says his family had a painful connection to those schools and they didn't talk about any of it.

He told her he'd think about it. And Emily kept working.

This was really the first time I ever turned my lens on my own country. I've reported in

Afghanistan and Syria and Turkey and Rwanda, but never focused on the horrors that Canada's

foundational history is based upon, you know, the genocide of its indigenous peoples.

And that same day that I messaged Julian,

while I was waiting to hear from him,

I went looking for a nation that said they were going to do a search,

and I was so lucky to happen upon an article about the Williams Lake First Nation.

I got in touch with Chief Willie Sellers and wrote him a letter, and he got back to me that day and said the creator has always had great timing.

Just yesterday, our council was saying we need someone to document this search.

And by the time Julian got back to me, I had started to book flights and plans to go to

St. Joseph's mission. So I said to Jules, hey, I would love for you to work on this story with me.

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