Where the Spirit Lives(1990)

A moving tribute to a young girl's courage and indomitable spirit...

Where the Spirit Lives is a 1937-set drama about Ashtecome, a young First Nations girl forcibly taken from her village as part of Canada's assimilation policy. Stripped of her name and identity, she's sent to a brutal boarding school designed to erase Indigenous culture and impose Western ways. Ashtecome—renamed Amelia—refuses to surrender who she is, even as she watches her siblings suffer the same cruel treatment. A sympathetic white teacher becomes her unlikely ally, quietly resisting the institution's bigotry. The film chronicles her determined fight to preserve her heritage and protect her family against a system bent on cultural erasure. A powerful account of resilience in the face of systemic oppression.