CBC original docuseries Telling Our Story was born from a promise.

The 4 x 60-minute limited series began as the dream of Innu producer Reginald Vollant, who envisioned First Peoples telling their own history and bringing it to the world.

The Terre Innue co-founder recruited director Kim O’Bomsawin (Terre Innue’s current president) and producer Francine Allaire (the company’s executive producer). The pair didn’t realize it at the time, but Vollant had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had three months to live.

Two weeks before Vollant’s death in August 2018, O’Bomsawin and Allaire recommitted their dedication to realizing his dream. Fast forward to 2023, the docuseries Telling Our Story has now made its world debut at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Leading up to that debut, the filmmakers faced several unique challenges, including bringing the First Nations communities together for the ambitious project. A key factor in making that happen was Vollant who, before his death, had recruited Elders from 11 First Nations to federate the cultural project. That team was instrumental in developing and securing funding for the series, which features the nations of the Abenaki, Anishinaabe, Atikamekw,Cree of Eeyou Istchee, Innu, Inuit, Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk), Mi’kmaq, Naskapi, Huron-Wendat and Wolastoqiyik

“It’s quite rare to have the 11 First Peoples together, united on one common project,” Allaire tells Playback Daily.

At a founding meeting in April 2019, these Elders, researchers, and the Terre Innue team spent three-and-a-half days questioning what the series should be about, what were the best processes to achieve their goals, and how to frame the pitch to potential funders to show how the series would speak to other Canadians. The Elders also helped develop the four themes of the series, which now comprise the episode titles: “Territory,” “Identity,” “Spirituality” and “Rebuilding.”

“In every decision and all through the process the communities were involved,” says Allaire. “It was like the first time they had the opportunity to tell their side of the story. Because we know that history is always written by those who conquered the land, or the people who colonized it. So now it was their time. That’s why the engagement was so, so deep.”

Allaire says development funding from Radio-Canada triggered the rest of the financing. From there, the Canada Media Fund, The Canada Council for the Arts, Crown-Indigenous Relations, Quebec’s Department of Relations with the First Nations and the Inuit, CBC, the Rogers Documentary Fund, and Société du Plan Nord came on board.

International distributor Off the Fence also boarded with a minimum guarantee in the beginning stages, which helped secure additional funds from Fonds Quebecor.

With those funds, filmmakers were able to mentor and train the production team, which was primarily made up of First Peoples. There were 12 Indigenous crew members who were either recent grads or just starting in the industry, and they were trained to go out in the field to research stories, characters, artifacts and more in more than 30 communities. They returned with 200 hours of video and audio.

“This was our biggest accomplishment, having those people who were very rooted in their own nation,” says O’Bomsawin. “Even being Indigenous myself, I have sort of a free pass when I go film in a community, but never like them. It was nourishing for them to do this research, but at the same time it nourished the project so deeply because when I went back they often came with me. It gave the series this feeling of being very close to the people. It was this unique access I could never have without them.”

Access wasn’t the only challenge the team faced during production. They also spent hours and hours doing translation work, sometimes with languages that only have two or three available translators. (Telling Our Story is available in all 11 First Languages as well as in English and French.)

The editing process was equally immersive, and took a full year with two experienced, full-time editors. Funds were also a big consideration, given the elevated cost of travelling to and filming in Northern locations. The team also ensured that every single subject that appears on-screen was paid a small gift or honorarium.

The biggest challenge, however, was the pandemic. When communities closed for months at a time, it forced production to pivot and the Telling Our Twisted Histories podcast was born. The team had always planned on doing a companion podcast, but was going to do one after the series filmed. With production at a standstill, they flipped the plan and did the podcast first.

“We learned a lot by doing that,” says Allaire. “It wound up helping us in making the TV series.”

Meanwhile, the team also worked on educational materials for schools and employers, social media content, exhibitions and an immersive full-dome film for planetariums.

Allaire reveals that, following a strong reception at TIFF, they are bringing the series to other festivals in Calgary, Hawaii, and Northern and Eastern Europe. She says the TIFF reception was strong and served as a launchpad for the run, but no sales were generated there. Off the Fence is presenting Telling Our Story at MIPCOM next month, where Allaire hopes the show can become a blueprint for other First Peoples around the world to also tell their story.

“It could be a format, but at the same time we don’t want to profit from it,” she adds, noting that filmmakers will participate in a roundtable on their processes during the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM). “This is a blueprint we can offer to others.”

“The point of this series was never to make profit out of it,” says O’Bomsawin. She reveals all 400 hours of material (plus the 200 hours of research) are being returned to the communities they came from, with special ceremonies planned to commemorate the exchange.

“So it becomes official. It’s gratitude, it’s thanking them. It’s giving them the value that they’ve put into this project, which belongs to them,” says Allaire.

Canada will have a chance to see the first two episodes of Telling Our Story when they air on CBC in recognition of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30. The rest of the series will air sometime in 2023, and the entire doc is now available to stream on CBC Gem.

For O’Bomsawin and Allaire, it’s the first of many upcoming projects showcasing empowering Indigenous stories that they hope to bring to audiences with Terre Innue.

O’Bomsawin has two feature-length documentaries in the editing stage — one about autism from an Indigenous point of view and another that offers a poetic look at the Innu territory — and is starting production on the company’s next big series, Go North. In it, production travels to all five Northern regions of Canada to meet locals, see how they used to travel the land, and learn how they will travel it in the future with climate change.

“The Terre Innue thread is to bring positive stories, and empowering stories, so that we can counterbalance in some way, all the bad stuff that we hear about Indigenous people,” says O’Bomsawin.

“Not that we are not speaking about the hard stuff; we do know that our people are struggling. The suicide crisis is very real. And the impacts of colonization are very important,” she continues. “But with true, very empowering stories we talk about those things, and we [also] stop seeing ourselves as being victims or poor people. We don’t want pity. We want to show the world how cool we are, and how strong we are as people and how we are rebuilding. This was an idea in Telling Our Story but it really is the story that we share.”

Top photo: Slam by 11 young people from the 11 First Peoples, Belvédère Kondiaronk on Mount Royal; Middle photo: Jeremy Dutcher and his mother Lisa Perley Dutcher, Wolastoqey from Tobique First Nation; Bottom photo: Throat singers, Inukjuak; all photos courtesy of Terre Innue.