A  new four-part series historical documentary series explores the history you won’t find in Canadian school textbooks.

In British Columbia: An Untold History, writer and director Kevin Eastwood (Humboldt: The New Season, After the Sirens and Emergency Room: Life + Death at VGH) recounts little-known stories he says he believes have shaped his home province.

Interviewing over 70 people from Indigenous, Chinese, Black, Japanese and South Asian communities, and researching over 10,000 archives, Eastwood says the series provides a more pluralistic, diverse, and multi-narrative approach to West Coast history.

The first episode will air at the Vancouver International Film Festival today (Oct. 8) before the weekly series debuts on Tuesday (Oct. 12) on Knowledge Network, British Columbia’s educational cable television network.

Produced Leena Minifie and executive by Screen Siren’s Trish Dolman, the 4 x 60-minute series is commissioned by Knowledge Network. It includes interviews, archival photography, film artifacts and footage of the region’s landscape – and involved travel into remote communities. Production financing was provided by Knowledge Network, Canada Media Fund, Rogers Documentary Fund, Canada Media Fund, Film Incentive B.C. and Government of Canada tax credits.

Given the current unprecedented conversations on discrimination and racism, Eastwood says he believes the documentary series will resonate with audiences more than ever.

“So much that we talk about in the show has really been kind of reflected in the events of the past year and a half,” Eastwood tells Playback Daily. “This has obviously been an unprecedented year in terms of a lot of discussion calls and cultural conversation. As a result of both the pandemic that led to obviously some negative things such as the rise in the Asian hate, and in the events of George Floyd’s murder.”

Each of the episodes in the series are thematically organized. They focus on four distinct subjects – from Indigenous resistance, labour and inequality around the time of two World Wars, immigrant-catalyzed social movements, to modern day environmental activism – taking viewers back to the late 18th century and showing the progression of history forward over 200 years to present day.

The series will be told through the people who lived through, or studied events, including authors, historians, knowledge keepers, elders, families, and descendants of historical figures.

“We made a point of traveling to farther flung communities, and seeking out people in those communities and I think that gives us a different collection of voices,” says Eastwood.

Unlike other documentaries, Eastwood says he feels the series will be set apart by its authenticity, providing perspectives that usually aren’t included in the retelling of events.

“A lot of documentaries focus on the negative, and obviously that is part of the history that we’re looking at, but we also have tried to include a number of stories that are inspiring stories of resilience or allyship or bravery.”

The series will stream for free across Canada in Knowledge Networks website and app.