Film Screening: Birth of a Family

In celebration of National Canadian Film Day, April 18, 2018, the Heard Museum is pleased to screen the Canadian documentary, Birth of a Family.

Four siblings, adopted as infants into separate families across North America, meet for the first time in this deeply moving documentary.

Between 1955 and 1985, the federal and provincial governments in Canada took an estimated 20,000 Indigenous children from their homes and placed them in the child welfare system. Often referred to as the Sixties Scoop, this policy was part of the same trend of forced assimilation as residential schools.

Betty Ann was one of these children, and over several decades has worked tirelessly to track down her three siblings. As the foursome piece together their shared history, their family begins to take shape. This film tackles grief, redemption, and discovery as it chronicles the family’s emotional reunion and captures an event that remains painfully elusive for many Indigenous people.

This event is free and open to the public.

National Canadian Film Day is a massive one-day, coast-to-coast-to-coast celebration of Canadian cinema. Learn more: canadianfilmday.ca

Birth of a Family | Provided by the National Film Board of Canada