Graphic art for nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up. (Supplied by National Film Board)

By David Opinko

Screening of “We Will Stand Up” in Lethbridge to highlight injustices against Indigenous peoples

Nov 3, 2019 | 5:00 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – In partnership with Amnesty International Lethbridge, the National Film Board is hosting a screening of the documentary nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up in Lethbridge.

It follows the story of how a Cree man, 22-year-old Colten Boushie, was killed near Biggar, Saskatchewan in August 2016.

Amnesty International Lethbridge Student Volunteer Kylie Fineday is helping to organize the screening and says Boushie was one of five people who walked through a rural property owned by Gerald Stanley, reportedly to get help with a flat tire, when he was shot in the back of the head.

The National Post reported in April 2018 that Stanley was acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges and was instead issued a firearms ban and was forced to pay a $3,000 fine.

“The film kind of goes into the event and the subsequent acquittal of Gerald’s family and sort of just digging into these events with a deeper context of the history of violence against Indigenous peoples in Canada and systemic racism at the hands of judicial authority,” explains Fineday.

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While the events being depicted took place in Saskatchewan, she believes it is an important film to show in Lethbridge as she believes this community has historically struggled with various forms of discrimination and still does to this day.

nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up won the Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award at the Canadian International Documentary Festival and took home the Sun Jury Award from the ImagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival.

The screening will take place at the Theatre Gallery in the downtown branch of the Lethbridge Public Library. It starts at 6:30 pm on Monday, November 4th.

A trailer of the film can be viewed on the National Film Board’s website here.

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