‘Bones of Crows’ location manager Jerome Turner and actor Michelle Thrush hosted a screening of the feature film Saturday at the Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod.
Filming Bones of Crows, a movie based on true events at Canada’s residential schools, was an emotional experience for cast and crew.
Award-winning actor Michelle Thrush, whose recent work includes the latest installment of the Prey franchise, said Saturday Bones of Crows touched her unlike any other production.
“When we work on Indigenous stories there’s a lot of stuff we carry as actors,” Thrush said. “There’s a lot of times that I have left sets and walked into the trees and bawled my eyes out by myself.”
“On this film it was my first time, my first experience ever in the film industry, where in the scene where I lost my children that pain that I felt was my mom’s and my kookum’s, all the women in my family.”
When filming stopped on that emotional scene, Thrush found herself in the dirt crying.
“The director (Marie Clements) came out and she laid with me and held me and rocked me,” Thrush recalled. “Then we cried together in that moment. And that’s never happened to me as an actor before, to have my director do that.”
“That’s the type of film this was. And that’s the honour that I felt being a part of this one.”
Thrush and location manager Jerome Turner hosted a screening of Bones of Crows on Saturday night at the Empress Theatre.
Bones of Crows is a multi-generational story of resilience told through the eyes of Cree matriarch Aline Spears.
Removed from their family home and forced into Canada’s residential school system, young musical prodigy Aline and her siblings are plunged into a struggle for survival.
Aline and her descendants fight against systemic starvation, racism, and sexual abuse — and to build a more just future.
Thrush acknowledged the residential school survivors in the audience at the Empress Theatre, sharing a comment from a woman who watched Bones of Crows the previous night at the Ermineskin First Nation.
“There were a lot of beautiful comments but something said was how we’ve been through so much as a people, but we’ve also been so strong,” Thrush said.
Bones of Crows was written and directed by award-winning Metis/Dene filmmaker Marie Clements.
Bones of Crows stars Grace Dove, who stars alongside Hilary Swank in the TV series Alaska Daily.
Other cast members include Phillip Forest Lewitski of Wildwood, Remy Girard of District 31, Karine Vanasse of Cardinal, Alyssa Wapanatâhk of Peter Pan, Gail Maurice of Night Raiders, Cara Gee of The Expanse, Toronto International Film Festival Rising Star Joshua Odjick, Summer Testawich and Carla Rae,
Bones of Crows had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
Bones of Crows was produced by Ayasew Ooskana Pictures Inc, with Marie Clements Media, Screen Siren Pictures and Grana Productions.
Bones of Crows was filmed on the residential school site in Kamloops. B.C., prior to the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves.
All of the prairie scenes in Bones of Crows were filmed just south of Kamloops.
Audience members observed a moment of silence following the movie to honour residential school survivors and the children who did not come home.
More than 400 crew members were involved in filming Bones of Crows, and more than half were Indigenous.
“That’s something that generally doesn’t happen in any production in Canada,” location manager Jerome Turner said.
Bones of Crows has a cast of more than 250 actors.
