Interview With Georgina Lightning

I read that you went to school in Los Angeles for Theater could you speak about that?

As a young woman, I was living in Edmonton Canada. I planned to go to college and university here but I after the first year I just was not happy. I always knew that I wanted to be a part of the storytelling world so I could reach the masses. That was the power that I was seeking. The power of story. I flew to LA with my husband and the kids and I spent the day in the library researching the academy. I decided to apply, and I got in.

We're so behind in the United States when it comes to acknowledging history. My question would be do you have any advice for the United States. I know for me personally; I just can't believe there has never even been a public acknowledgment of what happened to our First Nations people?

I started something called the the White House effort for healing and I thought it was possible to get a public proclamation apology for the residential school experience the same as what happened in Canada in the United States. I thought America would follow suit. I spent basically my whole my whole life savings doing this traveling around with ‘Older than America’ to talk about the residential schools. I contributed this to this policy package that Obama signed, but it was full of all kinds of other policies but the details were not put forth to the public so there was never a public proclamation. One of the commissioners here in Canada, Justice Mary Sin Claire, is a brilliant and a wonderful ambassador for first nations people. She is a commissioner of the truth and reconciliation commission that was formulated because of the apology in Canada.

Unfortunately, my efforts died when trump got in.

What is your experience with the residential schools?

I'm a residential school product, because my dad went to residential school. I ran away from home when I was 14, I've got all the trauma related diseases and illnesses, my father committed suicide. I have complex P. T. S. D. from from my childhood trauma for sure. I feel like my brain shuts off at a certain time, because I get bombarded. After I produced ‘Older Than America’, I got really sick and had multiple surgeries, yet I still wanted to take action. I didn't want to sit in the puddle of Mud so I walked out of it. I believe in the spirit of the storyteller, and that there is healing to be found there.

I would love to produce another documentary around survivors of the boarding schools and tell their stories, I know you know I look like a Whitey so you know It may not go over so well?

It would be even more integrity because the blood on your hands and it's not yours specifically, but your part of a country where the European Settlers created the residential schools. Everyone needs to be made aware that this happened.

So what's your next step what's your next creative endeavors?

I'm in post-production on a feature film call grandmothers medicine and it's about how the residential school took our identity away and made us a sick people. I am hoping the film will be ready for release in February.

The residential schools taught self-hatred and loathing, and I was experiencing this within myself. I blew my endocrine system out and attempted suicide myself. Everywhere where there's a high rate of suicide when it comes to first nations people. I have a chest of memories that I've kept locked inside for years with a band aid in place. All the suicide epidemics were 10 times worse than they were before the apology in Canada, because all of a sudden everyone was forced to deal with the horrible history. The government forced the victims to go in front of the stand and be cross examined on the most disgusting heinous crimes done to them as a children, I mean really psychotic demented shit that they had to testify on in front of a jury. People were dying at such a high rate at this time, people that hadn't touched alcohol and 30 years were drinking themselves to death in a year.

It was spirit death.

Is there anything you want to share with SNC students, or the world?

Every single human being on this planet deserves love respect.

There was an east Indian man I wanted badly to become the prime minister, and he said when I get in, I'm going to make sure that all First Nations people have clean drinking water. The backslash was so severe. Nobody wanted to fund the promise of clean water. Some of those really remote tribes are in places where these oil drilling is done. It’s really third world conditions with no safety. They've leaked oil and now the waters are contaminated. What is wrong with this society it makes me sick.

Are you familiar with the Cree prophecy about the sixth sun?

There is a cleansing that's going to come and a rebirth to follow. There are so many things that come into play here. So many different indigenous leaders that contributed their wisdom to the prophecy. Louis Riel said, “My people will sleep for one hundred years. When they awake, it will be the artists that give them back their spirit.” It's the seventh generation that will restore balance, that is us. I think that's why the stories are coming out of our story tellers.

I really believe that in order to restore balance we need the First Nations ways of being to be a part of our consciousness, any thoughts on that?

We were given ceremonies and I don't believe that we were given those ceremonies to protect and keep them to ourselves. I believe we were given these ceremonies to share them, and I believe that all people have contributions to make. I do yoga to create mindfulness, and acupuncture. I opened my mind and I don’t think like a colonial separatist.

I want Grandmothers Medicine to become a movement, not a movie. I want it to insight and generate a movement and I need help.

Georgina Lightning Biography:

Georgina Lightning is a First Nations film director, screenwriter, and actress. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, she is an enrolled member of the Samson Cree Nation. She was raised off-reserve, near the Samson community in Edmonton, Alberta.[1]

In 2007 she was featured in Filmmaker Magazine as one of 25 New Faces of Independent Film. In 2010 she was the recipient of the "White House Project- Epic-Award for Emerging Artist".[2] She co-founded Tribal Alliance Productions, partnering with executive producer Audrey Martinez, as a means to create opportunities for Native American, First Nations, and other Indigenous filmmakers.[3]

In 2008 Lightning directed, wrote, and starred in the supernatural thriller film Older Than America, becoming the first North American Indigenous Woman to direct a major feature film.[4] The film won several major awards at film festivals.[1] She based the film on her father's experience with the Canadian Indian residential school system and other personal family stories.

Lightning is an outspoken advocate for First Nations and Native American causes, working towards a greater appreciation and awareness of the intrinsic value of North American Indigenous cultures to not only Indigenous people themselves, but to society in general.[5] Her three children are either currently or previously working actors. They are Crystle Lightning, Cody Lightning, and William Lightning. (Wikipedia)