Life on the Reserve - Trailer

Life on the Reserve is a documentary about what life on a Canadian First Nation reserve is really like. A film by Graham Shonfield.

Please go to www.lifeonthereserve.ca to buy your DVD!

Description:
Life on the Reserve is a documentary that follows a few members of the Kiashke Zaaging Anishinaabek (Gull Bay First Nation) community as they take us through what their daily life consists of.

Life on the reserve was different from what I was expecting, although certain stereotypes were somewhat accurate, if any outsider had taken the chance to get to know the people living in this community, they would know that they are hard-working, humorous, down to earth people. This community also has quite a bit of development happening, they have a new band office, they have a brand new health centre and they are currently building a hockey rink arena for the kids to play hockey in the winter.

Life on Gull Bay Reserve is difficult compared to living in a big city. They don't have clean drinking water, so they have to get bottled water shipped to the community. The school is not big enough to have adequate space for the students and they don't have a gymnasium. And despite being a small community of 400 on-reserve members, they have deep family conflicts that affect everyone's daily life.

The aim of this documentary is to introduce you to what living on a reserve is really like. Although Gull Bay is only one reserve in this great country, it has similarities to them all. I hope this trailer intrigues you to check out the film once it comes out in Fall 2010 and my hope is that after watching this movie you will see First Nations in a different light and begin to understand their struggle.

For Director's Bio please go to http://gshonfield.blogspot.com/2010/08/life-on-reserve.html

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• First Nation
• Life on the reserve
• Canadian Youth Documentary
• First Nation Reserve
• Aboriginal Reserve
• Indian Reserve
• Native Reserve
• Documentary about reserves
• first nation film
• gull bay

[BruceHyerMP]

Congratulations on what's sure to be a very interesting and informative documentary, Graham! I can't wait to watch it ...are you going to screen it in Gull Bay or in Thunder Bay?

[gshonfield8]

@BruceHyerMP I'm actually hoping to do both! Definitely one in Gull Bay and if I can get enough people interested in Thunder Bay I would like to do one there as well!

[xLouLuu]

seriously i don't understand this documentary??.. looks like every other small trash town I've seen and like the one I live in.. not trying to be rude but can someone tell me what makes a reserve so different and more deserving of special treatment than every other poor town and community?

[Savage30851]

The last time I checked, we had bombs in Canada.........Bingo!!!!!

[dfathere]

Hey my rez I have not been too in 10 yeara..

[ITHEREONETHATHASNT]

As a white man with two degrees an accounting designation and no fucking job I would kill to be aboriginal. To NEVER have to worry about unemployment and be able to get any government job just by applying would be fucking amazing If you are poor and aboriginal it is YOUR fault. I would LOVE not to have to work. All they do is learn their oral history and then they wonder why they cant get jobs outside the governemnt. But dont worry now companies are going to be forced to hire them.

[juniorkitty11]

heres the messed up part...there is no reason for the reserves to look like this..yeah we hear stories of drinking mouth wash etc but the gov were given way to much money to clean these places up and as far as i can see the reserves are not seeing this money..no reason for it..just greed of man again! we take your land but you can live on this piece of it and we will pay all of you x dollars when you turn 18..ok that always pissed me off.wtf up with that..but seriouly we should be equal!

[72issues]

@TheRevitGuru Your narrow view is pretty sick. When will you turn from your hate, instead of spending time thinking your intellegent.

[MFskat04]

i know how you guys feel, i am from a reserve a little more up north. called attawapiskat, ontario. we dont have clean water as well, and there is alot of drug abuse here. we also dont have a school. i hope one day your reserve will get the things that it needs!

[Shukria123]

freedom is a wonderful thing

but these changing winds can blow and hostile...