Kutoven Stevens pictures himself running for his life as his great-grandfather once did at eight years old. Stevens’s great-grandfather, Franklin, was among hundreds of children who resisted assimilation by running away from federally funded, church-run boarding schools across the United States.
In “Remaining Native,” director and first-time feature filmmaker, Paige Bethmann, relates Stevens’s coming-of-age story as a 17-year-old Native American navigating dreams of becoming a collegiate athlete while grappling with the history of his ancestor’s escape.
On May 27, 2021, the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at a former residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia, was released by the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation. The deceased children are believed to be as young as three years old…