At 16, an age when most kids worry about dating, school and cars, Lorne Olson had bigger concerns.  A Safeway bag carried all his worldly possessions, and when he was lucky, he’d crash on a friend’s couch instead of a Winnipeg park bench. To survive, he sold grams of pot. One night, it was pouring; huddled on his bench, he was too hungry, too drenched, too defeated to fall asleep. 

At that moment, as if an epiphany, Olson heard music.  “In the distance, I heard the Rod Stewart song, Young Hearts.  I don’t even know where it was coming from.  I started to listen when it came to the line in the song, ‘…somehow, some way, its gotta get better than this.’  I was really down, and those words came to me like an injection—oh shit, it’s gotta be better than this.” 

It did get better. And it's getting better every day.  

One of 17 children, the homeless Ojibway kid from the Broken Head Reserve in Manitoba who sold drugs and slept in parks has beaten the odds. He’s excelled in film, theatre and business schools, landed a job working for APTN, and has produced a startlingly effective five-minute film that cuts to the core of Native identity. 

If you haven’t yet heard of Lorne Olson, you will. Produced through the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), Apples and Indians  debuted last year and continues to create buzz for its unblinking yet sardonic commentary on the importance for Native American-Aboriginal-Indigenous-First Nations-Indian people to not relinquish their cultural identity to an outside power. 

“My subtle message in the film is that we have to ultimately decide who we are. It’s not in a book somewhere, it’s not an agency, it’s not the government. You have to come to terms with that at some point,” he says. “Your identity should come from your own inner search and your own inner origins.” 

Apples and Indians  pulls no punches, but never stoops to low blows. Far from detracting from Olson’s point, the fact audiences are neither incensed nor threatened makes his serious message much easier to ingest. “Both in the Native and White communities, the response has been overwhelmingly positive,” he says. “I haven’t received a negative comment yet, which is surprising, since I thought for sure I would.” 

He purposely used the word “apple” in his film’s title—a pejorative used to describe a fellow Native who discards their own culture and assumes a “White” identity.  Admittedly, Olson has jokingly used the term while being labeled as one himself. Is that fair? 

“Being judged an ‘apple’ depends on the person making the accusation. But I’ll be honest. What really bothers me is when other Natives equate being healthy, clean, educated, and successful as being ‘white.’ With that kind of thinking, then if you’re dirty, down and out, uneducated, then you’re a Native?.” He continues, “Any sort of success you have and some will accuse you of being an ‘apple.’ Not much you can do about that, though I do my best to fight those things.” 

And fight he does. Through his success, he is defying the overtly racist teachers who ignored his potential; verbally abusing and striking him and other   Aboriginal kids with hairbrushes. Defying the perception that regards material comforts and education as selling out.  Defying the idea identity is based on how you look and what tribal status you’re conferred.  Moreover, in fewer than five minutes, Olson’s jaunty little film does a remarkable job prodding the touchy issues of skin color and the role the Canadian government plays in deciding who is and isn’t officially “Indian.” 

Whereas the NFB grant limited Olson to making a short, he hasn’t abandoned his original plan to develop a full-length feature expanding on the same theme.  Meanwhile, he’s also writing scripts for a both a documentary and fiction story about the Big Foot legend.

Working behind the scenes at APTN, he witnesses firsthand the surge of Native film talent. “From where I’m standing, Native cinema is growing by leaps and bounds. You can see the synergy developing. We have a perspective that will tell stories in a way people have never heard before, which will bring a greater understanding of who we are as a people.” 

We likewise gain an understanding of what inspires this young filmmaker. Indeed, life has come a long way for the wayward kid sleeping under a tree next to a Safeway bag. Rod Stewart was right—some way, some how it had to get better than that.

It did. And for Lorne Olson, it's getting better every day.  

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Watch Apples and Indians in its entirety on CBC's ZEDtv!:
APPLES AND INDIANS  

To purchase, please visit the National Film Board of Canada:
FIRST STORIES SERIES DVD