Reservation 1 Spring: Houses and Trees - DVD

$12.95

This cinema verité series follows a year in the life of a First Nations reserve in the interior of British Columbia. Eleven intermarried families form the population of the 550 Shuswap at Alkali Lake. Struggling under the paternalistic system devised by the Canadian Government, they have never signed a treaty formalizing their existence and are forced to live like interlopers on their own land. Ill-equipped for the modern word, the reserve is both their prison and their sanctuary?and perhaps, the best hope for the preservation of their culture.

The filming follows 14 major characters, revealing the complexity of reserve life with its vast web of community, its contradictions, its nepotism, its feuds, its lingering malaise of long unspoken sexual abuse, but, ultimately, its deep well of spirituality.

Part 1.
Spring: Houses and Trees
An introductory show with scenes that give a lot of the information to explain the situation on the reserve. Chief Andy rails over the theft of B.C. and the government treating them as beggars. Fred tours the meadows where everyone lived before the Dept. of Indian Affairs moved them down to the main reserve. Norma leads a rent insurrection among the elders. The High School has a prom for the Grade 10s but it?s the 8 year olds who are way more clued in to the music scene than the teenagers. The Dept. of Indian Affairs comes calling to discuss housing and refuses to accept that the band has a financial problem. A teacher departs after two years on the reserve, reflecting on the problems of the band?s youth. A logging road is discovered going in on their traditional lands without consultation and raises the prospect of confrontation. Dave worries about his wife?s new-found cancer. Ivy buries the hatchet with Fred?s family but old ghosts abound at a BBQ as well as the cemetery.

52 minutes

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