Ninan Auassat: We, the Children

Sometimes one must pull away from the whole—let go of structural visions and dive into individual stories. These small stories that bring nuance, shift perspectives, and restore the humanity that often gets lost in analyses that are too systemic.

With Ninan Auassat: We, the Children, Kim O’Bomsawin grants us a rare privilege: access to the daily lives of children from three different Nations, each rooted in a distinct territory—the three rascals from Manawan, the teenage girls from Pessamit, and little Legend and her sisters from Whapmagoostui.

This film is suffused with light. The children illuminate the frame, and their words reach us with an eloquence worthy of the most stirring political discourse. Lucid to the core, forced to grow up too fast, they remain children nonetheless—lively and funny, tender and moving, proud of their culture and their roots, fierce in their hope for the future.

At the very end of the film, we meet the young protagonists again, some five years after the first shoot. The young adults emerging on screen give us reason to believe in the world to come. When young Monique speaks of the love she pours into her baby—she, whose mother was never able to say “I love you”—we grasp both the depth of the scars and the immeasurable resilience of this generation. Yes, light always finds its way through the cracks…

Naomie Décarie-Daigneault
Tënk's Artistic Director