RADICAL DREAMER: The Passionate Journey of Graham Spry
58 min Documentary

Radical Dreamer: The Passionate Journey of Graham Spry explores the fascinating life of the “Father of Public Broadcasting”. Spry was also one of the founders of the CCF (later the NDP) and played a key role at the inception of socialized medicine. But he was considered by those in power to be a “dangerous radical” and spent much of his productive years in virtual exile. This enticing film weaves rare archival material with contemporary voices to unravel the secrets of this nation builder who faced many of the same challenges that confound policy makers today.

Producers / Directors: Peter Raymont & Bruce Steele
Produced in association with SCN, TVO, BC Knowledge Network, AccessTV and CLT
With the participation of The Canadian Television Fund, CIFVF, The Canada Council and SaskFilm

TAR SANDS: The Selling of Alberta
A 1hr TV Documentary HD

A verité documentary with a Fellini-esque cast of international characters and intersecting storylines, Tar Sands: The Selling of Canada is dramatic in style – reminiscent of films such as Traffic and Syriana – but grounded in the gritty reality of Fort McMurray, Alberta, a boomtown where the streets are literally drenched in oil. In this contemporary Deadwood, Chinese investors, Newfoundland roughnecks, Calgary “blue-eyed sheiks”, Washington energy czars and down-on-their-luck drifters meet. We’ll follow the surprise endings to one of the biggest shell games in the world.

Producer/Directors: Peter Raymont & Tom Radford
Associate Producer: Niobe Thompson
Produced in association with The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The Canadian Television Fund, The Rogers Documentary Fund, The Alberta Film Development Program

TRIAGE: Dr James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma
90 min/52 min Feature Documentary

Racing against time with limited resources, relief workers make split-second decisions: who gets treatment; who gets food; who lives; who dies. In Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma, director Patrick Reed follows Dr. James Orbinski on a heart-wrenching journey back to the lands and people whose life-and-death struggle marked him forever. Orbinski accepted the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as their international president and was a field doctor during the Somali famine and the Rwandan genocide.

Director: Patrick Reed
Producer: Peter Raymont
Photography: John Westheuser
Sound Recording: Ao Loo
Stills Photographer: Steve Simon
Editor: Michèle Hozer
Researcher: Michelle Latimer

A co-production of White Pine Pictures and The National Film Board of Canada
Produced in association with CanWest Mediaworks (Global TV Network) and the Canadian International Development Agency

A Promise to the Dead
The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman
Available in:
Spanish (EL LARGO EXILIO DE ARIEL DORFMAN: Una Voz Contra el Olvido)
French (UNE PROMESSE AUX DISPARUS: La vie d’exil d’Ariel Dorfman )
90 minutes

A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman is an exploration of exile, memory, longing and democracy, as seen through the experiences of the world-renowned writer, Ariel Dorfman - author of numerous works of fiction, plays and essays in Spanish and English. Dorfman's books (including Death and the Maiden, In Case of Fire in a Foreign Land and How to Read Donald Duck) have been translated into over 30 languages and his plays performed in more than one hundred countries.

Born in Argentina, but raised in New York, until his family was exiled to Chile during the Red Scare, Dorfman became Cultural Advisor to the Staff of Chile's socialist president Salvador Allende. When the democratically elected government was toppled in the military coup of September 11, 1973, Dorfman was among a handful of Allende's inner circle to survive. Years later, he was told that his life was spared because "someone had to live to tell the story".

A Promise to the Dead was filmed in the USA, Argentina and Chile in late 2006, coinciding with the death of former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet. The film is based, in part, on Dorfman's best-selling memoir, Heading South, Looking North.

A White Pine Pictures production in association with
Bravo! (a division of CTVglobemedia Inc.) - Executive in Charge of Production: Charlotte Engel
ITVS International - Executive Producer: Sally Jo Fifer
National Geographic Channel International, HUMAN-The Netherlands, BBC Four, SVT-Sweden,
SBS-TV Australia, The Biography Channel, The Saskatchewan Communications Network,
BC Knowledge Network, Télé-Québec

TŠEPONG
A Clinic Called Hope
English & French
42 minute, 47 minute & 49 minute versions

Nominated for two 2007 Gemini Awards
Best Documentary Program & Best Sound in a Documentary Program

Lesotho is a tiny country in southern Africa with an enormous problem: HIV/AIDS. More than one-third of all adults in country are HIV positive, the highest rate in the world. Attempting to remedy the pandemic, a small group of Canadian health care workers have traveled to a remote corner of Lesotho, helping set up one of the country's first HIV/AIDS clinics and distributing life-saving antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). Currently, the program is in danger of being a victim of its own success. There are just too many people desperate to get too few drugs. Failure, though, is not an option. If the Antiretroviral drug pilot project collapses an ARV resistant strain of HIV/AIDS may develop, spreading across the continent, and eventually into the West. Lesotho is not just a small, remote nation; it is the front-line of a global battle with literally millions of human lives at stake. This battle that must be won; this story must be told.