Whale musings

Vancouver: My Father, My Teacher, produced by Big Red Barn Entertainment in Vancouver, has been given a one-hour broadcast licence from APTN.

A coproduction with Vancouver-based director Dennis Allen (MacKenzie Delta Films), My Father, My Teacher will shoot this July and October on the MacKenzie River Delta in the Arctic.

The documentary will follow an Inuvialuit family as it participates in its traditional annual beluga whale hunt and will focus on the stories, perspectives and philosophy of the family patriarch, 75-year-old Victor Allen, the director’s father.

The project, which got development funding from APTN and the National Film Board of Canada, is the second coproduction between those organizations. Previously, they produced the two-parter The Hunt: Food from the Land and The Walk: A Path to Healing, which was broadcast on APTN in its Reel Insights strand in February.

In other NFB Pacific Centre news, The Ties that Bind Internet Documentary & Community Engagement Project is now online at www.nfb.ca/tiesthatbind.

The Web project, inspired by the Force Four Entertainment/NFB/CBC Newsworld documentary The Ties that Bind, about disabilities and family health, combines traditional linear documentary storytelling with an online presence to encourage an exchange of ideas.

Like the documentary, the website explores the issues of disabilities and family, and the Jordan family story, which begins in the documentary, continues online. IE