In October of 1966, 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack died while fleeing from the Cecilia Jeffrey residential school near Kenora, Ontario, and attempting to walk 600 kilometers to return to the family he was taken from. Fifty years later, Gord Downie immortalized Chanie’s story in this moving and poetic film that pairs his acclaimed album with a beautiful animation based on the drawings of Jeff Lemire. Using only the songs and animation, The Secret Path captures the loneliness of Chanie’s painful journey and includes flashes of the life he had with his family and the hardships he endured at the residential school.