A nishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) filmmaker Dinae Robinson says Canada’s film and television industry is “slowly but surely” improving in honouring Indigenous narrative sovereignty, after working on the Eagle Vision documentary True Story for Corus Entertainment to mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

The two-hour documentary (pictured) is produced by Eagle Vision for broadcast on Corus’ History Channel on Friday (Sept. 30), the day of the federal holiday. It examines the history of Indigenous peoples in Canada, and the ways it has been rewritten through a colonial lens.

Robinson, the director, showrunner, creator and executive producer of the film, tells Playback Daily that “True Story is an important project that needs to be told now as it’s told strictly from all Indigenous voices: an Indigenous creator, Indigenous crew and Indigenous production company.”

She adds that having this creative freedom is a step closer to change, having grown up with a lack of accurate depictions of Indigenous peoples in the media. “We were often [portrayed] either in a historical mythological depiction or in a stereotypical manner, so this project is important. I think my colleagues and I can say that we’re seeing the change happen,” says Robinson.

“We’re seeing production companies, distributors, streamers and people in the industry beginning to recognize that Indigenous stories need to be told by Indigenous people, and unfortunately that wasn’t the case initially, but it’s slowly happening. They are starting to see the importance of Indigenous voices,” she says. “We are now being heard, recognized and credited appropriately.”

True Story is narrated by Kaniehtiio Horn (Alice, Darling) and takes an in-depth look at how the country can move forward from its colonial history and reach reconciliation through a series of interviews with Indigenous elders and experts throughout the country.

Eagle Vision’s president and founding partner Lisa Meeches, head of production Kyle Irving, and Rebecca Gibson serve as executive producers. Jessica Landry is the co-executive producer. It is financed with the support of Corus, the Canada Media Fund, the Manitoba Film and Music, Eagle Vision and its distribution arm Migizi Distribution, which also holds distribution rights to the doc.

“The documentary started with Corus Entertainment. They reached out to Eagle Vision in the fall of 2021 and asked the prodco to come up with a concept to describe the relationship between Indigenous people and Canada. It was quite a big project to take on, so we told them that there was no way that can be done with one documentary,” she says.

“We said, ‘there’s going to be some maneuvering needed; we’d need to include various voices solely from Indigenous experts throughout the country to talk about their experiences and knowledge of what happened, because everyone’s experiences are going to be different.’ Corus was 100% on board and completely left it under the hands of Eagle Vision, who left it up to me,” says Robinson, who wrote the doc with Landry.

Lisa Godfrey, SVP of original content and Corus Studios, said in a statement to Playback Daily that Corus’ intention was to engage an Indigenous-led production company to educate and inform Canadians of the Indigenous peoples rich history, and selected Eagle Vision after having worked with them on the long-running docuseries Ice Road Truckers. “We knew that their award-winning team, including Dinae Robinson and Lisa Meeches, would be able to share this story in a prolific way. Creative freedom is extremely important to us to ensure an authentic story will be deeply felt and rooted in personal history. True Story is a reflection of that.”

The documentary was in development in the winter of last year and went into production across Canada from the beginning of June to mid-August of this year. It was filmed at various locations and reserves in Manitoba, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, Ontario, and New Brunswick.

“It was a lot to take on but the only small challenge we found was scheduling. Everyone we interviewed was enthusiastic about the documentary and it’s hard to complain or find anything challenging when you’re given this opportunity to create a meaningful and honest conversation about our history,” she says. “I had the full creative freedom on this project, but it was ultimately influenced by the experts and what they brought to the interviews. From where we started in pre-production is a lot different from what we ended up with and that’s got to do with the experts.”

Currently, Eagle Vision is working on a deal for educational sales in Canada and will also be shopping it on the international market.

On top of True Story, Robinson is also currently working on Eagle Vision’s series 7th Gen and is in development on an Indigenous horror anthology film called Have you Heard? based on three Indigenous urban legends. She is the writer and director of the feature.

Image courtesy of Eagle Vision