UNA-NY presents

in partnership with
Fordham University | Office for International Services
and
Columbia University | International Students and Scholars Office

Dawnland

Please join us for this Screening the Issues presentation
followed by a discussion with

ROBERTO BORRERO (Taino)
Indigenous human rights advocate

CHRIS NEWELL (Passamaquoddy)
Senior Advisor to the film

Wednesday |  October 16, 2019

5:00 – 6:00 p.m. |  Registration and Reception
6:00 – 8:00 p.m. |  Film Screening followed by Q+A

Screening begins promptly at 6:00 p.m.

Dolby 88 Screening Room
1350 Avenue of the Americas (at West 55th Street)
Lobby Level
New York, NY 10019

ADMISSION

UNA Members: $10
UNA Student Members: $10
Guests and Non-Members: $15

Purchase all advance tickets for the film HERE

NOTE: $5 of each admission ticket will be donated to the Maine Wabanaki Reach Foundation

EMMY® AWARD WINNER
For OUTSTANDING RESEARCH
Read more here

AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER:
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Tacoma Film Festival

Powerful and moving, DAWNLAND takes viewers to Wabanaki communities in Maine and inside the Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission as it grapples with the meaning of truth, racial healing, tribal autonomy, and child welfare system reform.

For most of the 20th century, government agents systematically forced Native American children from their homes and placed them with white families. As recently as the 1970’s, one in four Native children nationwide were living in non-Native foster care, adoptive homes, or boarding schools. Many children experienced devastating emotional and physical harm by adults who mistreated them and tried to erase their cultural identity.

Now, for the first time, they are being asked to share their stories.

In Maine, a historic investigation — the first government-sanctioned truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) in the United States — begins a bold journey. For over two years, Native and non-Native commissioners travel across Maine, gathering testimony and bearing witness to the devastating impact of the state’s child welfare practices on families in Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribal communities — the tribes which collectively make up the Wabanaki people.

DAWNLAND follows the TRC to contemporary Wabanaki communities to witness intimate, sacred moments of truth-telling and healing. With exclusive access to this groundbreaking process and never-before-seen footage, the film reveals the untold narrative of Indigenous child removal in the United States.

The TRC discovers that state power continues to be used to break up Wabanaki families, threatening the very existence of the Wabanaki people. Can they right this wrong and turn around a broken child welfare system? DAWNLAND foregrounds the immense challenges that this commission faces as they work toward truth, reconciliation, and the survival of all Indigenous peoples.

Please join us for this special screening, which will be followed by a Q+A with our guests: Roberto Borrero, an indigenous Taino musician, artist, writer, human rights advocate, and Chris Newell (Passamaquoddy Tribe), the Education Supervisor for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center (CT) as well as the co-founder and Director of Education for the Akomawt Educational Initiative.

We are pleased to announce that DAWNLAND is the recent winner of an Emmy® award for Outstanding Research. The Upstander Project film won the Emmy at the 40th annual News and Documentary Awards. Read about it here.

This special screening is presented in partnership with the Office for International Services at Fordham University, and the International Students and Scholars Office at Columbia University.