WaaPaKe (Tomorrow) is an intensely personal 2023 documentary by award-winning filmmaker, writer, artist and academic Jules Arita Koostachin. A member of Attawapiskat First Nation, Koostachin’s recent release untangles the complicated journey of healing from intergenerational trauma.
WaaPaKe begins with a interview with Koostachin’s mother, a softspoken woman, recounting the abuse and neglect she endured at residential school. She remembers how those experiences influenced her protectiveness towards her son, Koostachin’s deceased brother.
The film later addresses how Koostachin’s mother became a troubled parent, with anger issues. As a result, Koostachin and her siblings evolved into second-generation victims of residential schooling.
Another filmmaker may have presented Koostachin’s mother as monstrous – a fearsome figure from childhood. However, by starting the interview with the elderly woman recounting her childhood trauma, viewers are primed to see the defenseless child within her. From this framing, the ensuing traumas of Koostachin and her siblings cannot only be placed on their mother’s shoulders. Instead, the blame is directed towards the brutality and inhumanity of the residential system itself.
During an interview, Koostachin vented about her upbringing. “I think I needed just to say it, get it out of my system,” she said.
In the post-production process, she reviewed the footage and opted to self-censor dialogue she considered too harsh. She confessed to feeling guilt at the prospect of hurting her mother’s feelings. “They get older, and they’re more frail, more childlike in a way,” Koostachin observed. “And then you feel like a jerk.”
As a mother herself, Koostachin seeks to break the cycle of abuse that often accompanies residential school trauma. “When people experience trauma as a child, sometimes they don’t move beyond that,” she said. “It’s almost like they’re still kids.”
She addressed how some abuse survivors wind up feeling jealous of the perceived health and happiness of their own children. After emerging from her difficult childhood, Koostachin sought counseling, to ensure that the burden of trauma would end with her. Accountability and forgiveness are regarded as aspects of healing in WaaPaKe.
Though her mother’s time in school was fraught with abuse, a young Koostachin experienced education as a privilege. When she became a young mother, Koostachin aimed to use education to lift herself out of poverty and secure a better life for her children.
Even as education offered her opportunity, Koostachin still views academia as a “colonial system,” involving the erasure of Indigenous people. Throughout her studies she was plagued by self-doubt, which she attributes to internalized racism.
As an educator, Koostachin attempts to remedy this issue by teaching the next generation of Indigenous youth. She emphasizes her students’ intelligence and their right to question the material they are assigned.
Koostachin speaks of anger, frustration and resistance as driving forces in producing change – and inspiring art. After working for years in social services, film and teaching, she chose to pursue a PhD in philosophy. During her studies, she focused on the topic of anger – the anger that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of colour) women so often experience.
“It’s this colonial idea of gender. You need to be quiet. You’re not allowed to be angry – then, you’re crazy,” she said, adding, “I have a right to be angry, and that’s okay.”
Projects such as Koostachin’s 2023 feature film Broken Angel explore generational anger, passed down through families. It challenges the colonialist mentality that Indigenous people must somehow feel accepting towards the injustice that has historically been dealt to them.
While completing her PhD, Koostachin sought to collect accounts by Indigenous academics about how residential school impacted their area of study. When people were unable to submit such accounts, the filmmaker speculated: “Maybe people are not ready to speak to their experience being raised by survivors.”
She subsequently approached the National Film Board, seeking the greenlight for a personal film project. The result, WaaPaKe, documents her family’s efforts to shed themselves of residential school trauma.
“Documentary is accessible, manageable and affordable,” Koostachin declared about her chosen medium. “If I’m not seeing something, I know there’s a void. That’s where I go.”
For an example, she brings up KaYaMenTa, her documentary that covers menopause from an Indigenous lens. When she underwent perimenopause, she discovered an absence of information, conversation and support. “Whenever I do any kind of project, it’s because people are not talking about it yet.”
Koostachin models a uniquely Aboriginal directing style, aiming to sustain a safe space with an on-call counselor on set. She starts the day with “Indigenous protocol,” having a knowledge keeper to open and close the production. At film festivals, she maintains closed Q&As to protect her family and herself from insensitive questions.
In documentaries, when subjects sign release forms, the content of their interviews is fair game. Koostachin however, is concerned about the vulnerability of her subjects. Noting that people sometimes “forget they’re being interviewed on camera,” she tries to protect these relationships. And in WaaPaKe, the interviewees include Koostachin’s own children.
Thus, Koostachin runs sequences by her subjects for their approval before the final cut. She recounted one interview in which a young woman started sharing traumatic experiences. Koostachin reacted by switching off the camera. “I could totally exploit this person and be a jerk because they signed the friggin’ release form,” she stated. “But, really, is it worth it?”
Koostachin pointed out the tendency to include characters of colour in stories, only to have them behave in a whitewashed way. “They’ll have a Black character or an Indian character, but they seem all very white… even in their clothing and their earrings and the way they speak.”
Koostachin warns against this tokenizing tendency within the academic community. She calls for “more Indigenous researchers, more scholarship by Indigenous folks, more critical analysis.”
WaaPaKe exists, in part, to combat the erasure of Canada’s dark history. “We can’t forget the past,” she said.
By delving into her family’s experiences, Koostachin opens a dialogue about the after effects of the residential system. “It’s pretty raw, and it’s a pretty brave film, and I don’t say that egotistically. I say it’s a freaking brave film, because it’s a hard film,” she emphasized. “You’re putting all your dirty laundry up there.”
Produced and distributed by the NFB, WaaPaKe will be available to view for free on its website starting September 30.