THE FILM Dear Georgina...
A Passamaquoddy elder journeys into an unclear past to
better understand herself and her cultural heritage.
About the film
At age two Georgina Sappier-Richardson was removed from her
home and Passamaquoddy community in downeast Maine by child protection
services. She would never see her parents again. Terror and abuse followed over
16 years in four different foster homes.
Dear Georgina follows this Passamaquoddy elder from
Motahkomikuk as she tries to fill in the blurry outlines of her identity. Now a
grandmother Georgina is still attempting to re-integrate herself into the
community she barely knew.
She remembers, “When I was 30 years old and I went back to
the reservation this Indian lady told me, ‘You look exactly like your mother as
a young person.’ So that made me feel special, made me feel real.” This propels
Georgina’s lifelong mission to find herself.
But despite her gregarious personality and infectious laugh,
she is stuck straddling two different worlds. At the end, Georgina
travels to her foster community in northern Maine. Determined to reclaim some
fragment of her lost childhood she makes an incredible discovery, but will it
help heal decades old wounds?
Dear Georgina is a follow-up to the Emmy® award-winning Dawnland (2018), in which Georgina told a portion of her harrowing story of surviving foster care. Georgina is just one of many thousands of Indigenous children with similar stories.
[Sundance supports indigenous film cycles, allowing
indigenous people to be captured in their creative state and bring art back
into their native land. This supports indigenous people and allows for others
to see things from a different perspective and gain education on indigenous
people’s lives.]
As said by Maine-Wabanaki, Gkisedtanamoogk, a prior
professor at USM and Ted Talk speaker bringing light to indigenous people’s
stories, “One common thread that bound us together was a deep abyss of love and
gratitude.” More importantly, though, he does not just mean connecting
indigenous people, but he means the connection that all human beings have to
one another. “The life between sky and earth, everything is connected,
everything, even people.”
Posts
I spoke with Georgina many times about her past when she was my Bible student. The lost part of her past really bothered her, so I hope she found what she needed. I do miss talking with her.
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