Episode Details

Christian Zyp interviews Coty Savard (producer) & Connor McNally (subtitle editor) about Gil Cardinal's film FOSTER CHILD: ohpikihâkan awâsis. It will screen as part of Dreamspeakers International Indigenous Film Festival on Saturday April 18th at 7PM at Landmark City Centre Cinemas. There will be a post-screening Q&A panel after the film with elders Jerry & Jo-Ann Saddleback hosted by Connor McNally and Coty Savard.

FOSTER CHILD: ohpikihâkan awâsis... An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this autobiographical documentary, he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards. “Foster Child” is one of the great docs to come out of Canada and nobody, but Gil could have made it,” says writer and broadcaster Jesse Wente, the former Director of Canada’s Indigenous Screen Office. “Gil made it possible for us to think about putting our own stories on the screen, and that was something new and important.”