Award-winning documentary film on Canada's Untold story of Genocide to be premiered in Canada at the Gabriola Island Film Festival, January 20, 2007
"It's changed forever how I view my own culture and my country. I can't find the words to describe the power of this film" commented a Malaspina College instructor on December 18 after she viewed UNREPENTANT: Kevin Annett and Canada's Genocide. UNREPENTANT airs for the first time the living accounts of survivors of torture and ethnic cleansing in Canada's infamous Indian residential schools, woven into a stirring "David and Goliath" tale of one man's struggle to bring to light the crimes of his church and country. This is the story of Kevin Annett, formerly a United Church minister in Port Alberni, B.C., and how he came to bear witness to crimes against humanity in native residential schools. This deliberate genocide against our indigenous populations was sanctioned by the Canadian government until 1984, and perpetrated by the Anglican, Roman Catholic and United Churches, who oversaw the running of the schools. Despite media coverage of the litigation surrounding the residential schools crimes, the deaths and disappearance of more than 50,000 children in these schools have never been documented and exposed - until this film. In the early 1990's as a new minister in Port Alberni, B.C., Kevin Annett observed how in a town where 30% of the population was native, none of them ever came to church. He started asking questions, and from there he embarked on years of research and true Christian activism for justice, a "calling" that would change him forever. This made him many powerful enemies, including the corporate benefactors of his church, like powerful west coast logging companies. The United Church broke its own rules in order to take away his ministry after firing him without cause and then expelling him from his profession in the only public "defrocking" of a United Church minister in history, at a cost to the Church of over $250,000. The Church also paid for his wife to divorce him and take custody of their two small children. Kevin Annett has been subjected to repeated death threats, blackballing and harassment that continue to this day. UNREPENTANT took 19 months to film, primarily in BC and Alberta, and is based on Kevin Annett's book Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust. The entire film was a self-funded, grassroots effort, which is reflected in its earthy and human quality. Bear witness to this Canadian holocaust in our own backyard by hearing the stories that for years these survivors were afraid to tell. The film is 105 minutes in duration, and was awarded the prize for Best Director of an International Documentary at the New York Independent Film Festival on November 16, 2006.
