Ottawa Public Library – Main presents Rhymes for Young Ghouls

It’s 1976 on the Red Crow Mi’kmaw reserve, and 15-year-old Aila (Jacobs) is the weed princess of her community. Hustling drugs with her uncle Burner, she sells enough dope to pay a “truancy tax” to Popper, the sadistic “Indian agent” who runs St. Dymphna’s Residential School.

It’s a tough life, but she’s making it work. That is, until the precarious balance of her world is threatened by her father’s return from prison and the theft of her drug money.

Part fable, part small-town drama, Rhymes for Young Ghouls is a richly imaginative and striking drama about growing up during a very dark time in Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people.

“A savvy [Indigenous] genre film with a strong, beautiful and ingenious heroine whose courage helps right an injustice.” — Liam Lacey, The Globe and Mail