Directed by Secwépemc filmmaker Sean Stiller, 'Returning Home' follows Orange Shirt Day founder Phyllis Jack-Webstad on a cathartic cross-Canada educational tour as her own family struggles to heal from multigenerational trauma. Amid a global pandemic and the lowest salmon run in Canadian history, 'Returning Home' explores how a multi-year federal fishing moratorium is tearing at the very fabric of Secwépemc communities and traditions. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries Secwépemc communities were dispossessed of their land and their children were consumed by the residential school system. By observing the trauma experienced by Phyllis and her family, 'Returning Home' holds a mirror to the trauma experienced by the natural world, too, as the salmon are also facing dispossession through gradual destruction of their waterways. For the Secwépemc, healing humans and protecting the natural world are interwoven.
Directed by Secwépemc filmmaker Sean Stiller, 'Returning Home' follows Orange Shirt Day founder Phyllis Jack-Webstad on a cathartic cross-Canada educational tour as her own family struggles to heal from multigenerational trauma. Amid a global pandemic and the lowest salmon run in Canadian history, 'Returning Home' explores how a multi-year federal fishing moratorium is tearing at the very fabric of Secwépemc communities and traditions. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries Secwépemc communities were dispossessed of their land and their children were consumed by the residential school system. By observing the trauma experienced by Phyllis and her family, 'Returning Home' holds a mirror to the trauma experienced by the natural world, too, as the salmon are also facing dispossession through gradual destruction of their waterways. For the Secwépemc, healing humans and protecting the natural world are interwoven.