Written by Lauren Rosier
The Indigenous, queer, and Venice Shorts Film Festival winner, Jayli Wolf, is a doomsday cult survivor-turned activist, actress, and an alt-pop singer/songwriter, producer, and filmmaker. Wolf, a by-product of the controversial “Sixties Scoop”, chose her song, “Child Of The Government” as her first solo single.
The song, “Child Of The Government,” comes alongside a chilling short film (written, directed, and produced by Jayli herself), which reveals Jayli‘s father’s experiences during the Sixties Scoop, and it also won ‘Best Music Video’ at the Venice Shorts of California (an IMDb qualifying monthly and annual festival).
The Canadian government and Catholic Church were responsible for taking or “scooping” over 20,000 First Nation, Métis, and Inuit children from their families and communities in the 1950s through the 90s. These children were placed into foster homes or adopted (some accounts of the children were sold) into non-Indigenous families across Canada, the U.S., and beyond. The government went so far as to change some of the children’s true ethnicity on file. Many of the children experienced severe sexual, physical and emotional abuse while in custody. Unfortunately, Jayli‘s father was one of these children.
Her new single is a glimpse of her concept EP and serves as an introduction of sorts featuring stories about Jayli, her family, and the Indigenous community.
“All the children that were misplaced can never get back what was stolen from them. Survivors try their best. My dad and I are lucky because we were able to find our way back home to our blood family, to our community, to each other even,” says Jayli Wolf, “But that’s not the story for everyone. Some kids were sold to the USA, or even as far as Australia. Some survivors have since learned that their biological families have passed – those ties are broken forever. I am lucky that I found my way back home, but now the work starts. Now the reclamation begins for me.”
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