*Unrepentant* - Kevin Annett Screens Film on Canada's Genocide 7:00 p. m. - Friday, March 16th 1455 de Maisonneuve West, room H-535 Montreal, Quebec
This film screening is with the co-writer and producer.
"UNREPENTANT: Kevin Annett and Canada's Genocide" (December 2006) Winner of Best Director Award, New York Independent Film and Video Festival
According to Kevin Annett, the time has come for Canadians to learn the truth about what really happened to the aboriginal people from the start of colonialism until today. It's not a pretty story. "Unrepentant: Kevin Annett and Canada's Genocide" documents the "deliberate and systematic extermination" of non-Christian indigenous people within the Indian residential school system by the Catholic, United, Presbyterian and Anglican churches, in collusion with the federal government.
Kevin Annett is co-presented by CKUT Radio McGill in collaboration with Concordia's University Center for Native Education.
This event is free and open to the general public. Everyone is welcome.
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For Immediate Release
New Award Winning Documentary of Canada's Hidden Holocaust Premieres in Ontario and Quebec, March 6 to 18, 2007
UNREPENTANT: Kevin Annett and Canada's Genocide (Awarded Best Director of an International Documentary Film at the New York Independent Film and Video Festival, November 2006)
"...a powerful tool to expose the genocidal racism that lies behind the liberal smiley-face facade of Canadian society ... a veritable kick in the groin." Larry Gambone, review of UNREPENTANT, Any Time Now, February 2007
UNREPENTANT chronicles Canada's "dirty secret" - the planned extermination of aboriginal people in church-run Indian Residential Schools ÃÆïÃâÿÃâý and a clergyman's struggle to document and make public these crimes. For the first time since its release in New York last November, this ground-breaking film will be screened before audiences in central Canada.
UNREPENTANT is an intensely human story based on the first-hand testimonies of aboriginal survivors of Canada's ÃÆïÃâÿÃâýresidential schoolsÃÆïÃâÿÃâý, where more than 50,000 children died between 1890 and 1984. Their passionate accounts are interwoven with former United Church minister Kevin Annett's own story of how he faced firing, "defrocking", and the loss of his family, livelihood and reputation because of his efforts to help residential school survivors and bring out the full truth of the murder and torture that occurred in these schools.
UNREPENTANT is not only about a terrible past, but how the legacy of legal genocide in Canada continues to destroy aboriginal people and the land all Canadians occupy. Despite the continual efforts by Canadian church and state to impede this film through a campaign of harrassment, misinformation, blacklisting and death threats, Kevin Annett will be bringing UNREPENTANT for public showing in Ontario and Quebec between March 6 and 18, 2007.
Kevin will be speaking publicly and showing UNREPENTANT on these dates:
Sudbury: Tuesday, March 6 Ottawa: Thursday and Friday, March 8 and 9 Toronto-London area: Saturday and Sunday, March 10 and 11 Peterborough: Monday and Tuesday, March 12 and 13 Montreal: Thursday March 15 through to Sunday March 18
For more information on these showings, contact Kevin Annett at: hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca ph: 250-753-3345 or 1-888-265-1007 (messages) and see this website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org UNREPENTANT Running Time: 105 minutes (colour)
Background Profile of UNREPENTANT and its Producers
UNREPENTANT took nineteen months to film, primarily in British Columbia and Alberta, and is based on Rev. Kevin Annett's books Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust (2005) and Love and Death in the Valley (2002). This film was an entirely self-funded, grassroots effort, which is reflected in its earthy authenticity. It was filmed on the sites of many of the former Indian residential schools and other places where the crimes described in the film took place.
UNREPENTANT was written by Kevin Annett and veteran Hollywood film maker Louie Lawless, who was part of the Production team that produced the feature length documentary film ÃÆïÃâÿÃâýMansonÃÆïÃâÿÃâý, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Since then, Louie has been a member of the Producers' Guild of America and the Directors' Guild of America. Kevin Annett is a former minister of the United Church of Canada who was expelled without cause or due process from that church and publicly blacklisted in 1995, after he unearthed evidence of murder and land theft by his church's officials.
"When I first read Kevin Annett's book, Love and Death in the Valley, I knew this was a story that begged to be told. It has all the ingredients of powerful drama: greed, corruption, and murder, all involving the government and churches, and told through the eyes of a whistle blowing minister." Louie Lawless
For more background information, see these websites:
Kevin Annett: ph: 250-753-3345 / 1-888-265-1007 email: hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca or kevin_annett@hotmail.com
UNREPENTANT is released in DVD (colour) format and has a running time of 105 minutes. In November, 2006, it won the award of Best Director of an International Documentary Film at the New York Independent Film and Video Festival.
Copies may be ordered through Kevin Annett or Louie Lawless. Copyright c 2007 Annett-Lawless Films. All rights reserved.
Read and Hear the truth of Genocide in Canada, past and present, at this website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org ... ... and on this radio program: "Hidden from History", every Monday from 1-2 pm (PST) on CFRO 102.7 FM (www.coopradio.org) (Vancouver)
"When the desire for Truth and Virtue becomes the only bias in our mind, only then can we know in ourselves what is right." Peter Annett, Humanist and dissident, 1769 (jailed and persecuted by the Church of England for his questioning of the Bible and the church)