Vancouver-based prodco Acimow Media has optioned the historical book On Savage Shores to develop as a three-part docuseries, titled On Distant Shores.

The series is being developed by Barbara Todd Hager (pictured), CEO of Acimow Media and a Métis/Cree documentary filmmaker. It will follow three European explorers and the Indigenous people they abducted.

Each episode is set in a different European country; Spain, France and England.

On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe is written by U.K. author and historian Caroline Dodds Pennock. The book looks at the stories of Indigenous peoples from First Nations such as the Aztec, Maya, Totonacs, Inuit and Iroquois, who were taken across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe after 1492.

In a statement, Hager said, “Dr. Pennock’s brilliant book brings to life the harrowing and heartbreaking experiences of Indigenous people from every part of the Americas who were taken from their families and communities, against their will, by such celebrated explorers as Christopher Columbus, Walter Raliegh, Jacques Cartier, and others.”

Hager has previously directed projects such as the APTN docuseries 1491: The Untold Story of the Americas Before Columbus, based on a book by Charles C. Mann.

Image courtesy of Acimow Media