Friday, December 7 ~ SOOKE.
On Wednesday December 12, Awareness Film Night is honoured and excited to be bringing the film “Picking Up the Pieces: The Making of the Witness Blanket” and filmmaker Carey Newman to Sooke, says Awareness Film Night organizer Jo Phillips.
Filmmaker and Master Carver Carey Newman created the Witness Blanket over several years by weaving together over 800 found items from old residential school buildings, churches and other cultural structures across Canada, to create “a national monument to recognize the atrocities of the Indian Residential School Era.”
The result is a “quilt” 40 feet long of beautifully carved and thoughtfully placed wooden panels, home to memories that “individually…are paragraphs of a disappearing narrative (but) together they are strong, collectively able to recount for future generations the true story of loss, strength, reconciliation and pride”.
In this film, which recently premiered to sold-out audiences at the Vancouver International Film Festival, Newman seamlessly weaves the two stories together with his same artist’s eye; the story of the making of the Witness Blanket and the more poignant story of the residential school legacy as borne by survivors and their families.
The screening will be held at the Edward Milne Community School Theatre, 6218 Sooke Rd. from 7-9 p.m.
Admission is by donation. awarenessfilmnight.ca
Participants are asked to consider bringing a food item for the EMCS students’ “10,000 Tonight” Food Bank drive held on the same evening. The food items they collect are delivered to the Sooke Food Bank.