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Here are summaries and reviews of Finding Dawn and Highway of Tears, with attention to how they handle the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Western Canada. If you like, I can also compare them or relate them to Crazywater and the other films you’re studying.
1. Finding Dawn (2006)
Summary
Finding Dawn is a documentary by Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, with a running time of about 73 minutes. Wikipedia+2femfilm.ca+2
The film begins with the story of Dawn Crey, an Indigenous woman missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, whose partial remains were discovered on the property of serial killer Robert Pickton (though the DNA evidence was not conclusive enough to include her in the official list of his victims). National Film Board of Canada+3Wikipedia+3femfilm.ca+3
Welsh then broadens the scope to highlight the tragedies along Highway 16 (the “Highway of Tears”)—in particular, the disappearance of Ramona Wilson, one of multiple women (mostly Indigenous) vanishing along that corridor. academia.edu+3Wikipedia+3femfilm.ca+3
The documentary also covers Saskatoon, focusing on the disappearance of Daleen Kay Bosse in 2004. In that case, Welsh interviews family and community supporters about how the local authorities delayed or minimized the investigation. femfilm.ca+3Wikipedia+3National Film Board of Canada+3
Interwoven are voices of Indigenous activists and writers (e.g. Janice Acoose, Fay Blaney) who help situate these disappearances in a broader historical and systemic context of colonial violence, racism, neglect, and the legacy of residential schools. National Film Board of Canada+3Wikipedia+3femfilm.ca+3
Welsh frames the narrative not just as a crime story but as a cry for recognition and justice: the film visualizes marches (such as the annual Women’s Memorial March in Vancouver) and memorialization, and invites the viewer to see missing women not as statistics but as people with histories, communities, and losses. indigenous-resurgence.arts.ubc.ca+3National Film Board of Canada+3academia.edu+3
Review / Critical Commentary
Strengths:
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Humanization of victims. Welsh deliberately refuses sensationalism. She lets the family members, friends, and communities speak for themselves, giving space for grief, anger, and reflection. indigenous-resurgence.arts.ubc.ca+4theunexpectedtnt.com+4academia.edu+4
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Connecting individual stories to systemic causes. The film shows how racism, colonial trauma, poverty, and neglect are not just background conditions—but active forces that produce, sustain, and obscure violence against Indigenous women. Wikipedia+4National Film Board of Canada+4femfilm.ca+4
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Geographic breadth. Welsh moves across multiple sites (Vancouver, Highway 16, Saskatoon), making the problem national (not just local). It helps show that the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women is not one isolated region’s failing, but a pattern. Wikipedia+3femfilm.ca+3academia.edu+3
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Witnessing as activism. The film operates in part as a memorial and as a call to action. The presence of marches, memorials, and Indigenous-led activism throughout gives the viewer a sense of resistance and collective mourning. National Film Board of Canada+2femfilm.ca+2
Critiques / Limitations:
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Because the documentary was made in 2006, it cannot include many of the more recent developments in investigations, or more recent cases that have emerged since then.
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Some viewers may feel that the film’s pacing is deliberate and slow, which may test attention spans but serves the purpose of giving emotional and reflective space.
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The film is less concerned with “solving” individual cases than with narrative justice—which means that it sometimes leaves questions open, lacking closure. This is partly by design, but may frustrate viewers seeking conventional resolution.
Overall, Finding Dawn is a powerful and sorrowful meditation on absence, memory, and justice. It invites empathy and awareness rather than voyeuristic consumption.
2. Highway of Tears (2015; sometimes updated or re-aired)
You referred to a 2024 version, but the better-known Highway of Tears documentary is the 2015 film by Matt Smiley, narrated by Nathan Fillion, about the Highway 16 corridor in northern British Columbia. ff.hrw.org+4Wikipedia+4Wikipedia+4
If there is a newer 2024 version, I could not reliably verify it; the 2015 film remains a central version in public discourse and continues to be screened and circulated. highwayoftearsfilm.com+2thefeministwire.com+2
Here’s a summary and review of the 2015 Highway of Tears (Smiley).
Summary
This film investigates the series of disappearances and murders of Indigenous women and girls along Highway 16, a stretch also known as the Highway of Tears, between Prince George and Prince Rupert in British Columbia. thefeministwire.com+4Wikipedia+4Wikipedia+4
Smiley’s film situates these disappearances in the context of systemic racism, historical neglect, and under-resourced policing. It examines how colonial legacies—such as Indian residential schools, economic marginalization, and forced displacement—have left vulnerable Indigenous communities isolated without reliable transportation, often forcing women to hitchhike. highwayoftearsfilm.com+4Wikipedia+4natoassociation.ca+4
The documentary includes interviews with victim families, community leaders, activists, and investigators. It also explores the possible roles of known or suspected perpetrators (such as Bobby Jack Fowler and Cody Legebokoff) and questions the practices and priorities of the RCMP in handling the cases. ff.hrw.org+4Wikipedia+4Wikipedia+4
By linking individual stories to a broader pattern, Smiley aims to show that these are not isolated tragedies but symptoms of a national crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). Wikipedia+4thefeministwire.com+4natoassociation.ca+4
The film also references Finding Dawn as a prior effort to name and memorialize the women who are missing or have been murdered. Wikipedia+2Wikipedia+2
Finally, Highway of Tears ends not with a tidy resolution but with a call for national inquiry, public consciousness, and structural change. Wikipedia+2natoassociation.ca+2
Review / Critical Commentary
Strengths:
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Clarity in framing systemic injustice. Smiley doesn’t treat each disappearance as merely an isolated crime but uses them as entry points into deep-rooted structural issues: racism, institutional neglect, inadequate transportation infrastructure, and social inequality in Indigenous communities. Wikipedia+3thefeministwire.com+3ff.hrw.org+3
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Emotional resonance through families’ voices. Like Finding Dawn, the film allows families to speak, mourning loved ones, decrying inaction, and calling for accountability. This gives the tragedies a human face, resisting mere abstraction. thefeministwire.com+2Wikipedia+2
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A call to awareness and policy change. It strives to mobilize public pressure for a national inquiry and for changes in policing practices and resource allocation. natoassociation.ca+2ff.hrw.org+2
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Production values & narration. The narration by Nathan Fillion gives broad exposure, while cinematography captures the isolation of the highway terrain, reinforcing the sense of danger and invisibility. Filmoption International+2Wikipedia+2
Critiques / Challenges:
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Some critics argue that the film, while powerful, occasionally simplifies complexity in pursuit of a coherent narrative—which risks flattening differences between communities or individual cases. thefeministwire.com
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Because many cases remain unsolved (or only partially solved), the documentary necessarily leaves many questions open, which may frustrate viewers seeking clear justice or answers. ff.hrw.org+1
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The film has been critiqued for focusing more on raising awareness (advocacy) than on deep investigative nuance; some families or communities might feel it underrepresents local complexities or tensions with law enforcement. (This is a common tension in documentaries of this kind.)
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Some reviews suggest that Smiley’s voice and choice of narrators sometimes place a non-Indigenous gaze at the center—i.e. the risk of speaking for rather than purely with Indigenous communities. thefeministwire.com
Overall, Highway of Tears is a compelling, albeit sobering, documentary that succeeds in raising the urgency and human cost of the Highway 16 tragedy. It confronts audiences with how much remains unresolved and how much harm continues in the shadow of indifference.
3. Comparative Observations & Contemporary Significance
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Continuity and evolution. Finding Dawn predates the 2015 Highway of Tears but already includes the Highway 16 corridor in its scope (through Ramona Wilson) and helps lay groundwork in naming the crisis of missing Indigenous women. natoassociation.ca+4Wikipedia+4National Film Board of Canada+4
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From memory to mobilization. Finding Dawn operates more as a memorial and a plea for attention; Highway of Tears moves further toward advocacy and systemic critique, urging public and institutional accountability.
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Gaps in closure. Both films show how many cases remain open, how investigations are uneven, and how families are often left without answers—underscoring the persistence of injustice.
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Landscape as witness. The highway, the forests, the terrain itself become characters: they mark isolation and invisibility. In both films, geography is not passive background but an active factor in how disappearances happen and how investigations (or their absence) unfold.
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Ethics of representation. Because these documentaries tread difficult paths—speaking about grief, absence, and loss—they must balance honoring voices with avoiding sensationalism or exploitation. Both largely succeed through restraint and centering Indigenous voices.
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Relevance now. The issue is still ongoing: in the Highway of Tears region, newly discovered remains and identifications continue into the 2020s. highwayoftearsfilm.com+3Wikipedia+3ff.hrw.org+3
Thus, these films remain urgent, not just historical artifacts.
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