FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Award-Winning “Eskimos” World Broadcast Premiere
APTN (Reel Insights) – October 13th, 2010 – 9:00 PM
“I don’t regret the experience, but I have never recovered from it either.”
– Zebedee Nungak
TORONTO, October 4th, 2010 – White Pine Pictures is proud to announce the feature documentary The Experimental Eskimos, will have its world broadcast premiere on October 13th, 2010 at 9 PM ET/MT on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) across Canada.
The Experimental Eskimos won the Directors Guild of Canada Allan King Award for Excellence in Documentary, on September 25th. The film premiered at the Hot Docs International Documentary Festival in 2009 and has since toured festivals across the globe, winning additional awards at both the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival (Best Feature Documentary) and at the Yorkton Film Festival (NFB Kathleen Shannon Award).
The film documents an extraordinary project of social engineering. The Experimental Eskimos follows Peter Ittinuar, Zebedee Nungak and Eric Tagoona, who as 12-year-old boys, were shipped South in the early 1960s from their homes in the Canadian Arctic to attend white public schools in Ottawa. The consequences for the boys, their identity, and culture, were brushed aside. All three went on to become political activists for their people.
Featuring a wealth of rare archival footage, family photos and government documents, the 70-minute documentary is the untold story of how an experiment in assimilation not only changed the boys, but changed a nation.
“APTN was an integral part of making this film, with their assistance in funding as well as their continual support of the team’s vision for the film. It is a deeply moving tale that will reach hearts and minds,” said director Barry Greenwald.
Barry Greenwald’s documentary directing credits include Taxi!, Who Gets In?, Between Two Worlds, The Negotiator and High Risk Offender. His films have screened widely in Canada and internationally and have received numerous honours including the Cannes Palme d’Or and awards at Chicago, Leipzig, Melbourne, New York and Nyon.
The film reunites director Barry Greenwald and producer Peter Raymont, who previously worked together to make White Pine Pictures’ award-winning documentary Between Two Worlds. That film chronicled the life and tragic death of Canada’s “model Eskimo”, Joseph Idlout, leader of the Inuit hunters once pictured on the back of Canada’s two dollar bill.
The Experimental Eskimos is a co-production of White Pine Pictures and co-producer Alethea Arnaquq-Baril of Paunna Productions in Iqaluit, Nunavut. Visit APTN’s website for local broadcast listings: www.aptn.ca
About White Pine Pictures
White Pine Pictures is an independent Canadian film, television, and new media Production Company based in Toronto, Canada. Headed by award-winning filmmaker, Peter Raymont, the company is recognized internationally as a high quality production house with a reputation for compelling visual styles and depth of content. White Pine Pictures prides itself on its longtime relationships with Canadian talent and key industry players worldwide. White Pine has produced over 100 films, including the Emmy award-winning feature documentary Shake Hands With The Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire, the Oscar-shortlisted A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman, and the award-winning documentary Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould currently in theatrical release. White Pine is also producer of the TV drama series The Border, on CBC. Seasons One, Two and Three of The Border are currently airing across Europe and has been licensed to ION Television in the USA.
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