Our People Will Be Healed is a 2017 Canadian documentary film by Alanis Obomsawin. The film premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.[1] The film explores the Helen Betty Osborne Ininiw Education Resource Centre, an N-12 Frontier School Division school in Norway House, Manitoba where Cree students are taught about their own history and culture alongside the regular Manitoba school curriculum.[2] [3] [4]
Obomsawin previously filmed at the school during the production of We Can't Make the Same Mistake Twice to document the story of Jordan River Anderson, a Cree child whose death became the basis of Jordan's Principle, a federal government commitment to funding services for Indigenous children. Impressed by the school's success in helping to develop strong, healthy children, she decided to tell its story in a standalone film. The title, Our People Will Be Healed is a quote from someone interviewed in the film, and Obomsawin has said she sees a new optimism for Canadian Indigenous people.[4]
In December, TIFF named the film to its annual Canada's Top Ten list of the ten best Canadian films.[5]
In 2021 the film was selected for inclusion in Celebrating Alanis, a retrospective program of Obomsawin's films at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.[6]