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I'm an Indigenous Filmmaker Up for an Oscar. Here's What I Hope Happens Next.

I'm an Indigenous Filmmaker Up for an Oscar. Here's What I Hope Happens Next.

New York Times01-03-2025

Four years ago, a ground-penetrating radar study commissioned by the Tk'emlups te Secwépemc First Nation identified evidence of about 200 child-size graves on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia.
After the discovery, I received a phone call. It was from a friend and former colleague, Emily Kassie, asking if I'd be open to co-directing a documentary about the legacy of the 139 government-funded and church-run boarding schools that operated across Canada and forcibly separated six generations of Indigenous children from their families.
The idea behind the schools, in the words of one of their administrators, was to 'get rid of the Indian problem.' In 2008, the Canadian government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document their destructive legacy, and the commission concluded that these institutions committed a 'cultural genocide' against the country's First Peoples.
The news of the grim discovery in Kamloops hit close to home for me. All my adult life, I'd heard rumors that my father was born at or near one of those residential schools and that he'd been found, just minutes after his birth, abandoned in a dumpster. Those few details were all he or I knew. The silence, shame and guilt that hid this history from broader society rippled across generations of Indigenous families like my own. Our communities continue to suffer from cycles of suicide, addiction and violence, instigated by the experience at these schools.
When Emily, a filmmaker and tenacious investigative journalist who's covered human rights abuses from Afghanistan to Niger, asked me about joining her in documenting the legacy of these schools — a system that most likely nearly took my father's life and remained an unspoken horror for my family — I agonized over the decision.
While I stewed, Emily forged ahead. She'd found an article in The Williams Lake Tribune about Chief Willie Sellars and the Williams Lake First Nation, whose community was about to embark on its own inquiry into a former school down the road from the Sugarcane Indian reserve. Emily wrote the chief an email and the next day he called her back. 'The creator has always had great timing,' Chief Sellars said. 'Just yesterday our council said we needed to document our search.'
Two weeks later, I told her I was open to directing alongside her. That's when she let me know she'd identified a First Nation that was opening its own investigation and that the investigation was happening at St. Joseph's Mission.
There was a long pause on my end of the line. 'That's crazy,' I said. I told her that St. Joseph's was the school where my family was sent and where my father was born nearby and abandoned in a dumpster. 'And that's all I've ever known,' I said.
Out of 139 Indian residential schools across Canada, Emily happened to choose to focus our documentary on the one school my family was taken away to and where my father's life began.
Four years later, that documentary, 'Sugarcane,' is up for an Oscar on Sunday night. The investigation at the heart of our film found evidence that babies born to Native girls, including some fathered by priests, had been adopted or even put in the incinerator at St. Joseph's Mission to be burned with the trash. 'Sugarcane' is, to our knowledge, the first work in any medium to uncover evidence of infanticide at an Indian residential or boarding school in North America. In addition, we learned this was, in part, my father's story. Born to Native parents and found by a nightwatchman after his birth, he is the only known survivor of infanticide at the school.
The findings in our film raise a question: If such things were covered up at one school, what might be true at the other 138 Indian residential schools across Canada? And what remains hidden at the hundreds of Native American boarding schools that operated across the United States — where, unlike in Canada, there has been scant inquiry and even less reckoning with this history?
It's an honor to be the first Indigenous filmmaker from North America to be nominated for an Academy Award. But I better not be the only one for long. Some might see this nomination as historic and proof that Hollywood has come a long way from the time when studios portrayed Indians dying at the hands of swaggering cowboys. That era of western movies coincided with the heyday of the residential schools, which were designed to kill off Indigenous cultures and which led, in some cases, to the death of children themselves.
These foundational chapters in North American history — a cultural genocide that spanned over 150 years — have remained largely obscured and suppressed. Currently, right-wing parties in both Canada and the United States are trying to shroud the historical record. We must redouble our efforts to collect and preserve the memories of the elderly survivors of this system and tell their stories before they're gone and it's too late. Because it can, and is, happening again.
Policies like the separation of families, many of them Indigenous, at the southern American border, along with the return of explicit calls for land grabs and ethnic cleansing, are not imported — they're homegrown. Hollywood, like so many industries, appears on the brink of cowing to revanchist attacks on pluralism and difference.
For most of North American history, Indigenous peoples lived under a devastating form of authoritarianism, confined to impoverished reservations and denigrated as inferior outsiders in the only place we've ever known as home. Through the residential schools, we were even deprived of the right to raise our own children.
But those schools failed. And Indigenous peoples are still here. 'Sugarcane' is a testament to the stories yet to be told — stories of a people who survived a genocide, who have urgent things to say and unique stories to tell. We maintain a way of seeing the world that is deeply familial, communal, spiritual, rooted in place and tradition, and in that sense, human and universal. And we've only begun to tell our stories.

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‘Pretendian' or ‘victim': Inside this would-be Ontario lawyer's attempt to remake a life built on fraud
‘Pretendian' or ‘victim': Inside this would-be Ontario lawyer's attempt to remake a life built on fraud

Hamilton Spectator

time7 hours ago

  • Hamilton Spectator

‘Pretendian' or ‘victim': Inside this would-be Ontario lawyer's attempt to remake a life built on fraud

Before the headlines, Nadya Gill's life was filled with promise. Originally from the GTA, she played on Canada's youth national soccer team . At 16, she entered university in the U.S. on athletic scholarships, where she excelled on the pitch and in the classroom and earned the first of five post-secondary degrees. A coach told a Connecticut TV station her competitive drive could easily lead her to becoming a lawyer, a doctor, or 'a UN ambassador.' She graduated from law school, where she won awards and worked summers at the Crown law office in Toronto. After passing the bar exam, she landed a dream articling position at a sports law firm. It allowed her to work remotely and play professional soccer in Norway . Then came the rumblings online; her life fell apart — and she had to pick a new name. Two years ago, Nadya Gill and her twin, Amira, now 26, were outed as 'pretendians,' first by online sleuths and then a reporter in Nunavut , for falsely claiming to be Inuit to receive scholarships and grants. In September 2023, the RCMP charged the sisters and their mother, Karima Manji, with fraud. Last year, it was Manji alone who pleaded guilty, admitting she sent enrolment forms to Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI) with the false information that she'd adopted her own daughters from an Iqaluit woman. The forms were approved and she was provided enrolment cards that entitled the twins access to benefits earmarked for Inuit students. Manji had in fact given birth to her daughters in Mississauga in 1998. In court, it was revealed that the girls had received more than $158,000 for their education from September 2020 to March 2023. To many, Nadya's successes were a slap in the face and a reminder of the harm caused by more famous Canadians who've been exposed for falsely claiming to be Indigenous. In March 2024, Toronto Life magazine published an exposé on the family under the headline, 'The Great Pretenders: How two faux-Inuit sisters cashed in on a life of deception.' It went to press before a judge in Iqaluit sentenced Manji to three years in prison and called the twins 'victims.' On a warm sunny morning this past week in an Etobicoke park not far from where she grew up, the Star spoke with Nadya Gill under her new name, Jordan Archer, about her involvement in Canada's first criminal case of Indigenous identity fraud. It's the first time she has spoken publicly about the scandal that she says has destroyed her life. In the basic facts, Archer's story is this: She's a first-generation Canadian, born to a mother who immigrated from Tanzania and lived for only a brief period in Nunavut. Her father, Gurmail Gill, is British. No member of the family is Inuit, nor of Indigenous background. Still, Archer says, the story the public thinks they know is wrong — not that her version will convince everyone who sees her as a villain. For the first time since the scandal broke in 2023, Jordan Archer speaks about being at the centre of Canada's first criminal case of Indigenous identity fraud. 'How would you have expected me to know,' Archer says, referring to her teenage self while sitting on a park bench in athletic wear after jumping off an old hybrid bike. 'Put yourself in my shoes. If your mom came up to you, gave you the story, with proof.' 'Proof,' Archer says, was the Inuit enrolment card her mother applied for — by outright fraud — in February 2016, when Archer was 17 and already going to school in the U.S. Like many teens, Archer says she was only too happy to let her mother handle all her applications, finances and logistics. Manji was controlling, the kind of 'soccer mom' who would scold her daughter after a match if she hadn't performed up to her standards. She was also someone a judge would call a 'habitual and persistent fraudster.' At the time she filed the false applications, Manji was already facing serious fraud charges. In August 2017, she was sentenced to defrauding the charity March of Dimes, her longtime employer, of $850,000, for which she received a non-custodial sentence after reimbursing $650,000. Karima Manji, seen after her arrest in the March of Dimes fraud case. As unlikely as it may sound — the case was publicized — Archer says she wasn't aware of those charges until much later. At the time, she was living in the U.S. and had distanced herself from her mom, who still controlled many of her life decisions. She returned home from school in the U.S. at 20, which is when Manji told her: 'You're going to Saskatchewan … to a program where you'll do property law in the summer. It's for Indigenous students.' That's when, she says, Manji presented her with 'officially issued proof' — the Inuit enrolment card — and told her 'the story.' Manji had lived in Iqaluit in the '90s and had grown close to an Inuit family. That much was true. As her mother explained, when the father became ill with cancer, Manji took care of a daughter. That connection, Manji lied, had made her eligible for Inuit enrolment and, by extension, so were her daughters. Should Archer have questioned things? Maybe. But she says she believed her mother. In the interview, she likened the logic of her mom's explanation to a marriage — it wasn't a blood tie but 'a connection.' (In retrospect, this explanation is nonsense. To qualify, an applicant must both be Inuk according to Inuit customs and identify as an Inuk .) Still, Archer emphasizes that she accepted and embraced the connection she now thought she had — believing in some way that 'I belonged to the Iqaluit community.' She says she immersed herself in learning about Indigenous culture and participated in ceremonies, activities and educational sessions. She volunteered for the Akwesasne Community Justice Program and facilitated Kairos blanket exercises where participants step into roles of Indigenous groups throughout Canadian history. If she knew about the fraud, why would she do that, she asks. 'I think if you're trying to hide something, you stay under the radar.' As for what the card meant, Archer says she was kept in the dark as her mom secured tens of thousands of dollars for her education. 'I know the card gets you benefits, you have some kind of status with it, but I had no idea what (Manji) was doing with it.' Who questions their parents about things that happened before they were born, she asks? 'I know my dad's from England … I didn't say, 'Show me your birth certificate.'' The Iqaluit RCMP charged both Manji and the twins with defrauding the NTI — the organization tasked with enrolling Inuit children under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement — in September 2023. As is often the case with fraud, the big lie ended up being trivially easy to disprove. Manji had written on the application forms that Nadya and Amira were the birth daughters of a real Inuk woman named Kitty Noah, and then the application was approved without a shred of proof. (While there's no question her mother 'dug this hole,' Archer asks how the bogus application forms could have been accepted without a birth certificate.) Manji then used the girls' status cards to apply for benefits from Kakivak Association, an organization that, among other things, provides sponsorship funding to help Inuit students from Baffin Island pay for education. By early 2023, while Archer was articling and had already played in Norway, social media users began questioning the story of the successful 'Inuit' sisters from Toronto with the South Asian names. 'Our communities are small, we know each other. We know of each other and our families. There are only around 70,000 of us in Canada,' famed Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq wrote in a tweet asking how the twins could get scholarships meant for Inuit students. 'The resources and supports are limited.' In late March 2023, a reporter with Nunatsiaq News asked Amira to respond to the social media allegations. In a statement, Amira passed on Manji's story, that the twins' 'Inuit family ties' were through a family her mother had lived with. (Amira Gill declined to be interviewed for this story. 'My sister has chosen to keep her life personal, away from the public eye,' Archer said when asked about her twin.) But that's not what Manji put on the form; NTI soon released a statement that Noah was not the twins' birth mother and asked the RCMP to investigate. Kitty Noah has since died. When she found out she'd been listed on the application, she was 'flabbergasted,' her son later told CBC . Today, Archer says she struggles to make ends meet. She's working part-time at a hockey rink as a community service representative, 'directing people to the lost and found.' A Zamboni driver recently asked about her background. 'How much time do you have?' Archer told him, recalling the exchange. 'No matter what career I try to explore, I don't want this to come back.' She lost friends along with her articling job. In the wake of the case, the Law Society of Ontario initiated an investigation into her status as a lawyer. To practise law in Ontario, applicants for a licence must be of 'good character'; Archer feels she has no choice but to abandon a law career, at least at this point. She says she used to be puzzled when people described being debilitated by stress, but 'now, I really, really do understand. There were months when I wouldn't move or go anywhere.' Last fall, Archer thought she'd found a lifeline and signed a contract to play pro soccer. She felt she had been forthright about her past before signing but, ultimately, the league decided to rescind its approval of the contract. She was devastated. But it was also a 'turning point' — the realization she had to do something to try to clear the air and provide a 'fulsome' picture of the story. 'No matter what career I try to explore, I don't want this to come back.' She's since written a memoir, titling it 'When Life Conspired Against Me.' A summary provided to the Star described the book as an examination of the toll of the public backlash that destroyed her professional reputation. She's 'a victim of online bullying and was crucified in the media, despite not being involved in the fraud,' the summary reads. (The book does not have a publisher.) 'I'm serving a life sentence for a crime I didn't commit,' Archer says in a prepared blurb. 'I was the victim, but that means nothing when the court of public opinion plays both judge and executioner. In their story, I'm the villain, and that's all that matters.' Looking back, Archer says she now knows her mom would have pursued any chance at an advantage. 'She saw, you know, a bureaucratic loophole and she just went for it,' she says. 'Whether it was an Indigenous community or any other community, she would have just gone for it.' Confronting her mom was 'one of the hardest things I've ever had to do,' she told the Star in the days after the interview. Their relationship is messy, she adds. 'She didn't just hurt me, she detonated my life … and yet she's my mom.' She feels a 'heavy, inescapable obligation' to still be there for her mother, but 'supporting her didn't mean forgetting the harm. It didn't mean pretending everything was OK.' Soon after Manji pleaded guilty last year, the Crown withdrew the charges against Nadya and Amira. In response, the then-president of NTI called the withdrawal of charges against the twins 'unacceptable.' The twins 'benefitted from their mother's fraud scheme, and yet their role in the scheme will go unanswered,' Aluki Kotierk told Toronto Life. There's little chance Archer's story will convince anyone who believes she should have known. 'How can they say they didn't know they were not Inuit,' one First Nations advocate wrote on X. To those skeptics, Archer says she never claimed to be Inuk by blood; that was her mom's lie. Still, she hopes the doubters read the judge's words. Karima Manji, who is not Indigenous, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud over $5,000, after her twin daughters used fake Inuit status to receive Karima Manji, who is not Indigenous, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud over $5,000, after her twin daughters used fake Inuit status to receive 'The true victims of Ms. Manji's crime are the Inuit of Nunavut,' Iqaluit judge Mia Manocchio wrote . Manji 'defrauded the Inuit of Nunavut by stealing their identity. She has further victimized the Noah family and the memory of Kitty Noah. This is an egregious example of the exploitation of Indigenous Peoples.' 'Finally,' Manocchio continued, 'Ms. Manji has victimized her own children, her two daughters, whose lives and careers have been severely compromised by her fraud.' Manji is now serving a three-year sentence — a term that, the judge wrote, serves as 'a signal to any future Indigenous pretender that the false appropriation of Indigenous identity in a criminal context will draw a significant penalty.' Manji was also ordered to pay back $28,254 — what remained after she had already reimbursed $130,000. (Not that the 'proven fraudster' deserved any credit for paying back the fruits of her crimes, Manocchio wrote — 'if such were the case, then a fraudster with means could essentially buy their way into a reduced prison term, whereas an impecunious fraudster would serve the longer term.') Reached by phone at a halfway house, where she was in the middle of drywalling, Manji, 60, insisted to the Star that Nadya — she doesn't call her Jordan — was unaware of the scheme. 'I never, ever said a word to Nadya,' she said. 'She trusted me 120 per cent, if you can imagine, when this all started, she was in the States … her whole focus was on soccer.' Manji said she is appalled by the hurt she caused not only to Inuit communities, but to her own children, 'especially Nadya.' (The girls have an older brother.) While serving some of her sentence at Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Manji said it would take weeks to read her daughter's letters, because 'I just feel so awful.' Unprompted, Manji offers up an explanation for her actions: She was brought up in a strict, conservative family and believed that if you were a doctor, lawyer or engineer, 'you would do fine in life.' She had an unhappy upbringing and marriage and wanted to make sure her kids didn't go through that. 'If I made sure they were successful in terms of their education and career, that they wouldn't have to have gone through what I've gone through,' she says.

Police Release New Images of Travis Decker, Dad Accused of Killing His 3 Daughters, as He Remains on the Run
Police Release New Images of Travis Decker, Dad Accused of Killing His 3 Daughters, as He Remains on the Run

Yahoo

time15 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Police Release New Images of Travis Decker, Dad Accused of Killing His 3 Daughters, as He Remains on the Run

Police have released new images of Travis Decker, the 32-year-old Washington man accused of killing his three young daughters Paityn, 9, Evelyn, 8, and Olivia, 5, were last seen during "planned visitation" with their father on May 30, before their bodies were discovered days later The new images of Decker, shared by the Chelan County Sheriff's Office (CCSO), give the public a closer look at his tattoos and clothing around the time of his disappearanceAuthorities in Washington are continuing their search for Travis Decker, the man accused of murdering his three young daughters, and have released new images as they ask for the public's assistance as he remains on the run. On Saturday, June 7, the Chelan County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) released a wanted poster on Facebook that features multiple new photos, and a few previously released images, of the murder suspect, including some that highlight his tattoos and wardrobe. In the photos, Decker — who has been charged with one count of kidnapping and three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his daughters Paityn, 9, Evelyn, 8, and Olivia, 5 — can be seen with his hair pulled back and tattoos on his arm and ankles. The poster states that Decker, 32, was last seen wearing a tan or green T-shirt, which he was previously photographed in, with dark shorts. He is 5'8 with black hair and brown eyes, and the CCSO described him as "dangerous" and said he "may be armed." In the office's June 7 update, the CCSO wrote that hundreds of law enforcement personnel are searching "dozens of structures and the forests" in the area. "We continue these search efforts, acting upon gathered information and tips from the public, and leads developed through even more search warrants," the organization's statement continued, adding that a local road was reopened after authorities found "no credible threat." "However, we ask the public remain vigilant as they venture back out to the recreation areas of Chelan County. We have notified the USFS that they can reopen the recreation areas as well," the CCSO said. Authorities are encouraging locals to check their doorbell cameras, to contact authorities if they see something helpful to the search and to "not attempt or contact or approach" Decker if they see the suspect. Per a U.S. Marshals Service affidavit obtained by Fox 13 Seattle, the Independent and NBC Right Now, authorities said they were worried that Decker was attempting to flee the United States after allegedly looking up phrases including "how to relocate to Canada" and "how does a person move to Canada" on May 26. He also reportedly searched for information tied to a Canadian job site, the outlets said, citing the affidavit. Decker's daughters were last seen during "planned visitation" with their father on May 30. The Wenatchee Police Department (WPD) then issued an endangered missing persons alert the next day. On June 2, authorities canceled the alert and revealed they had discovered the three girls' remains. Fox 13 Seattle reported that Decker's pickup truck was found near the Rock Island Campground in Leavenworth, Wash., where the bodies were located. A preliminary report seen by the outlet lists their believed cause of death as "asphyxiation." Fox 13 also reported that investigators found a blanket, a wallet, food and car seats for the girls inside Decker's vehicle, which had two bloody handprints on it. The suspect "drove to and left the same campground a day prior to the kidnapping," court documents obtained by the outlet said. Police are now offering a $20,000 reward for any information leading to Decker's arrest, according to ABC News. Arianna Cozart, an attorney who represents the girls' mother, Whitney Decker, told PEOPLE on June 6 that "everybody cares that Travis is found for peace of mind if nothing else." Authorities are asking anyone who has seen Decker to call 911 immediately, or call the CCSO at 509-667-6845. A form can also be submitted to a tip line. If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages. Read the original article on People

Father Accused of Killing Daughters Could Be Traveling to Canada: Police
Father Accused of Killing Daughters Could Be Traveling to Canada: Police

Newsweek

timea day ago

  • Newsweek

Father Accused of Killing Daughters Could Be Traveling to Canada: Police

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Authorities in Washington state believe Travis Decker may be fleeing to Canada after federal court documents revealed the 32-year-old father researched Canadian relocation extensively before allegedly killing his three young daughters, according to local station KOMO News. Newsweek has reached out to the Chelan County Sheriff's Office via email on Saturday for comment. Why It Matters This case highlights critical vulnerabilities in missing persons alert systems and parental visitation safety protocols. The Wenatchee Police Department said Washington State Patrol was contacted to request an AMBER Alert, but "it did not meet the required criteria." What To Know Decker picked up his daughters on May 30 for a court-ordered scheduled visitation. According to attorney Arianna Cozart, who represents the girls' mother Whitney Decker, Travis and her client were in constant contact regarding their children. The former couple had been discussing Travis' dog Chinook and concerns about what to do with the dog as temperatures rose as Travis was living in his car. Whitney offered to let the dog live with her. Travis later instructed the children to get their belongings and told Whitney they'd return at 8 p.m. but never returned, according to Cozart. Cozart added that if her client had noticed any unusual behavior, "Whitney would not have allowed the visitation." The bodies of 5-year-old Olivia, 8-year-old Evelyn, and 9-year-old Paityn Decker were discovered at a campground near Leavenworth, approximately 11 miles from the Pacific Crest Trail on June 2 after being reported missing by their mother. Each child was found with plastic bags over their heads and zip-tied wrists, with preliminary autopsy results indicating death by asphyxiation, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. The Chelan County Sheriff's Office said Decker is wanted for three counts of first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping. Court documents, meanwhile, show Decker searched "how does a person move to Canada," "how to relocate to Canada," and "jobs Canada" in the days leading up to the tragedy, while also visiting the Canadian government's job search website on May 26. Investigators obtained and served several search warrants for Decker's Google accounts, which included previous searches made from his account. The trail runs from Mexico to Canada, ending at the northern border where no physical barrier exists. More than 100 officers are involved in the search covering rugged terrain in Washington's Cascade Mountains, with over 500 tips received from the public, according to the Chelan County Sheriff's Office. Court documents describe Decker as a "well-versed outdoorsman" with training in "navigation, woodland/mountainous terrain, long distance movements, survival," who once lived off-grid in backwoods for 2.5 months. Federal prosecutors note his military background includes "numerous disciplines needed to be able to flee." Authorities have closed multiple recreational areas including parts of the Pacific Crest Trail, the Enchantments, and Icicle Creek area near Leavenworth through at least June 18. Violations of the closure order carry fines up to $5,000 and potential six-month imprisonment. Travis Decker, 32, is seen in this undated photo provided by the Wenatchee Police Department. Travis Decker, 32, is seen in this undated photo provided by the Wenatchee Police Department. Wenatchee Police Department via AP What People Are Saying Arianna Cozart, speaking about her client Whitney Decker, in comments to Newsweek: "I think she is still reeling from losing her entire world. She is strong and kind and wants this tragedy to spur change and save lives. That is what is driving her right now. Wenatchee Police Department wrote on Facebook: "We want to express our sincere and deep heartfelt condolences to the family at this time." What Happens Next? Federal authorities have now charged Decker with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. The coordinated search continues with local, state, and federal agencies including the FBI and Homeland Security. Authorities have offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and urge residents in remote areas of five Washington counties to secure their properties and leave lights on.

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