Film highlights impact of suicide in KI

“We’re broken, broken from the past and it’s like a ripple effect that needs to stop and the real healing begin.”
Those were the words of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug’s Tina Sainnawap as she described the story of her eight nieces and nephews, whose parents had committed suicide, during the beginning of Andree Cazabon’s documentary film 3rd World Canada.
Sainnawap attended the film’s Sept. 30 premiere at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and its Oct. 2 screening during the Bay Street Film Festival in Thunder Bay.
“It was emotional for me because it brought back the pain of losing my sister to suicide and the pain of how my nieces and nephews must have felt when their parents committed suicide,” Sainnawap said about the premiere in Toronto, which she attended with two of her nieces and three community members. “I’m not sure how my nieces were – they didn’t say much.”
Sainnawap first felt angry when she learned about Cazabon’s plans to interview her nieces and nephews about the deaths of their mother, who committed suicide more than four years ago, her second common-law husband, who committed suicide a month and a half prior to their mother, and her first husband, who had committed suicide years before.
“At first I wasn’t aware of what she was doing, but the first thought that came to my mind at the time was anger because my nephews and nieces have been through a lot and now somebody was filming them and asking them questions,” Sainnawap said. “I just felt like she was going to hurt my nieces and nephews.”
Sainnawap hopes the film will open other’s eyes so they will seek healing for all their pain.
“It’s so important to stress a positive outlook on life no matter what happens in life, to move on and heal from it,” Sainnawap said. “It takes determination, commitment and courage to bring change to your life. It also takes hard work and perseverance during the healing process.”
Cazabon said she first learned about suicide orphans during a visit to the Treaty 3 community of Ojibways of Onigaming near Fort Frances.
“It blew me away,” Cazabon said. “After that visit in Onigaming, I decided to showcase this issue but in a remote community. So that’s how my journey with the film began.”
Cazabon said 3rd World Canada is the most important film she has made so far. Her four other films, including Wards of the Crown, the Best Social-political Documentary at the 2006 Golden Sheaf Awards, have been seen by more than one million viewers over the past decade on television and at film festivals across Canada.
“What’s baffling about the film is that I certainly didn’t go out of my way looking for the most tragic story I could find – I just stumbled upon it,” Cazabon said. “I’m left to wonder what other stories I would have found in communities not as prosperous as KI.”
The 50-minute film, which was shot in KI around the time of the KI 6 sentencing, jailing and eventual release, looked into the First Nations suicide issue through the story of eight siblings who were orphaned in a community struggling with Third World conditions after their parents committed suicide. The KI 6 – Chief Donny Morris, Deputy Chief Jack McKay, Head Coun. Cecilia Begg, Councillors Sam McKay and Darryl Sainnawap and band member Bruce Sakakeep – were sentenced March 17, 2008 to six months in jail for civil contempt of court after disobeying a court order allowing junior mining exploration company Platinex Inc. to access KI traditional territory.
They were released May 23 after serving 68 days after an agreement was reached between the community, the government of Ontario, and Platinex Inc. to allow the KI6 to attend their sentencing appeal at the Ontario Court of Appeal May 28 in Toronto, where the judges reduced their sentences to time served.
Ontario reached an agreement with Platinex in December 2008 to settle the on-going litigation over the company’s Big Trout Lake Property in return for $5 million and potential future royalty interest on the property. In addition, the government withdrew those lands from staking and mineral exploration.
Cazabon said the point of the film is not to bring people to the point of tears.
Cazabon said while some may feel like going home and pulling a covering over their heads and saying this is too big, what is needed is action.
“If our eyes are opened to the suffering that is happening in KI and many other First Nations communities across the country, when we start to fix it, we also start to fix ourselves,” Cazabon said. “Ultimately, what is really wrong is legislation that treats First Nations people as a trust responsibility of the federal government. That doesn’t just hurt First Nations people, it hurts all of us.”
The film was shot with the participation of Tikinagan Child and Family Services, KI and the Mamow-Sha-way-gi-kay-win: North South Partnership for Children through funding from the Law Foundation of Ontario, Atkinson Charitable Foundation, Laidlaw Foundation and Ontario Arts Council.