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Dawnland

2018 Directed by Adam Mazo, Ben Pender-Cudlip

A documentary about cultural survival and stolen children

They were forced to assimilate into white society: children ripped away from their families, depriving them of their culture and erasing their identities. Can reconciliation help heal the scars from childhoods lost? "Dawnland" is the untold story of Indigenous child removal in the US through the nation's first-ever government-endorsed truth and reconciliation commission, which investigated the devastating impact of Maine’s child welfare practices on the Wabanaki people.

Theatrical

14 Jun 2018

USA

14 Jun 2018

Theatrical

86 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by 😿Andrew Chrzanowski😿 ★★★½

"I can't get over the nightmares.... You can't heal someone who's gone through hell."
Crushingly depressing documentary about Native American children in foster care, as agencies are accused of "literally stealing children" by a Truth and Reconciliation commission, the first time that the American government is engaged in this way trying to right the wrongs of many decades of neglect and abuse.
Centered in northern Maine, for years the state placed Native children into white foster homes under the presumption that assimilating into "civilized" society was beneficial to them. In truth, a large number faced tormenting psychological and physical abuse under the care of these families and agencies. In Dawnland, we hear the stories of those who survived those years…
Review by Tim LaPointe ★★★

“I think the only one that’s gonna save me is myself.”
A documentary that’s less interested in powerful stories themselves and more interested in the power of telling your story. Which is a fresh perspective in today’s age of documentary storytelling.
Review by bluehour99 ★★★★

it’s not about blame, it’s about responsibility

watched for class but a must watch for anyone who wants to learn more about cultural survival and stolen Native American children.
In the United States, the government’s systematic efforts to uproot Indigenous cultures through violence, resettlement, ideology, and education had adverse effects on Native communities and larger society. Among these efforts, Native children were taken from their homes and placed in the institutions (boarding schools) or with foster care often with Euro-American families. Until 1970’s, these efforts affected one in four Native children in the United States. Physical and emotional abuse experienced by these individuals and cultural genocide by the aforementioned institutions and foster-care arrangement are being critically investigated, discussed, and creatively addressed by Indigenous Peoples in various parts of the world, including the United States, in different ways.
Review by rowie

okay deltaaaaa
Review by geolaw

Required
Review by Tavernacle ★★★★½

Spends a bit more time discussing the commission itself rather than the history (at least in the fifty minute version), but since the commission seems like a very rare modern good thing, I’m not too peeved about it. Heartbreaking, strangely uplifting at times, and with a very good and sudden turn into breaking down White Privilege.
This is the second time I’ve watched a Native American documentary that was cut down for broadcast on PBS/for schools. I appreciate that the filmmakers need to make multiple versions available, but it kind of sucks that the longer versions are seemingly so much more difficult to acquire.
Review by Liam Sullivan ★★★★

You can't heal someone who's gone through hell!
A tool of colonizers everywhere is to separate indigenous children from their parents and their culture. It's happened in Australia, and Canada, and the Western United States, but this story is particularly close to home for me since it involves the Wabanaki people of Maine. Wabanaki children were removed from their community and placed in foster care of white families. This continued happening even after a Federal regulation in the 1970s required child welfare organizations to prioritize placing children with relatives or foster parents in the same tribe.
In 2013, the Maine Wabanaki established the first truth and reconciliation commision which interviewed over 150 people over two years. The better part of…
Review by ladynihilo ★★★★½

Such a painful watch. I'm glad that Maine has taken a step in the right direction by forming a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Now if only the fact of our genocide of Native People could be acknowledged and our continued practice of stealing native children from their families and culture could be stopped once and for all. With the way our country is going I fear it won't happen anytime soon.
Review by Marisa Sotolongo

Dawnland sketches the recent history of child welfare workers removing indigenous children from their homes, families, and tribes, sending them to white foster families or boarding schools in a "civilizing" mission that is really just an attempt at cultural genocide.
The focus of the documentary is really on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It's really interesting to watch how the Commission initially prioritizes number of interviews and the product (a report) over the actual goals of truth and reconciliation - they also debate whether truth must come before reconciliation, and realize how long this process will really take. I don't know much about Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, but it seems like something to learn more about if we're serious about finding alternatives to the carceral state.
Review by Ryder Jiron ★★★★

What a powerful documentary on the abuses Indigneous communties have received from the child welfare systems in place.
I really appreciated the opening being the Indian Welfare hearings in 1974. It set up the historical significance of what this doc was going to be about.
While I've admittedly seen a better film regarding healing for Native communties from residential trauma, this was good for its own reasons.
The focus on the journey of the commission was really interesting, because while this was certainly leaning more into the governmental side of reconciliation, it was an important side of the stories of the healing.
The stories from survivors were very raw and I think that's part of what makes this doc interesting.…
Review by Brad ★★★½

Was missing from Letterboxd for several months since I saw it, but Dawnland is still prominent in my mind. A searing documentary about the human trauma and lasting scars of institutionalized racism, and a look at how the genocide of Native Americans still continues to this day in new forms. Just in the six months since I watched the film we've seen North Dakota take measures to disenfranchise their Native population, never mind the ghoulish actions taken at Standing Rock (see the Unicorn Riot produced doc Black Snake Killaz: A #NODAPL Story if your blood needs boiling).

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Dawnland

Synopsis

A documentary about cultural survival and stolen children

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Theatrical

14 Jun 2018

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USA

14 Jun 2018

Popular reviews

Where to watch

Dawnland

Synopsis

A documentary about cultural survival and stolen children

Directors Directors

Language

Genre

Theatrical

14 Jun 2018

USA

14 Jun 2018

Popular reviews

Directors