Recently Released
Covid Collateral
Covid Collateral
The human tragedies caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic will be counted for decades. Now, questions are being asked about how much of the damage was caused by the public health measures implemented to suppress the virus, especially lockdowns.
Covid Collateral is an investigative documentary which reveals that the severe lockdowns imposed by western governments were not driven by scientific consensus or accurate data. Instead, important scientific debate was shut down through fear and a collaboration between the powerful medical establishment, the government, big tech and the mainstream media. The film will illustrate how fragile we are in the face of global forces determined to push ahead despite mistaken assumptions and at any cost.
Covid Collateral is an investigative documentary which reveals that the severe lockdowns imposed by western governments were not driven by scientific consensus or accurate data. Instead, important scientific debate was shut down through fear and a collaboration between the powerful medical establishment, the government, big tech and the mainstream media. The film will illustrate how fragile we are in the face of global forces determined to push ahead despite mistaken assumptions and at any cost.
Producer, Director and Writer
Vanessa Dylyn,
Matter of Fact Media
Sales and Distribution
For distribution and general inquiries, please contact us or visit our online store
The Good Virus: How a "Good Virus" can Save Your Life
The Good Virus: How a "Good Virus" can Save Your Life
A global health emergency is upon us. By 2050, it is estimated that 10 million people world-wide, will die from superbug infections — dwarfing cancer. Unless urgent action is taken, multidrug resistant bacteria will decimate us. The situation is so desperate that both the FDA and Health Canada are allowing the use of the old Soviet cure - Phage Therapy for compassionate use.
Dr. Anthony Fauci recently announced funding for this revolutionary treatment:
“NIAID is supporting research to determine if phage therapy might be used in treating evolving antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases.”
We have been granted access deep into the heart of the hidden world of phage therapy: A crack team of Phage Hunters use the new killer phage therapy to save human lives and begin a new age of medicine.
Character sizzle link: https://vimeo.com/521021124 password: phages2021
The Good Virus Website
Character sizzle link: https://vimeo.com/521021124 password: phages2021
The Good Virus Website
Producers
Vanessa Dylyn
Rosvita Dransfeld
I.D. Productions
Director
Rosvita Dransfeld
Funder
Telus Originals
Sales and Distribution
International Distributor
Rosvita Dransfeld
Plastic People
Plastic People
How Microplastics Are Invading Our Bodies
This is a film unlike any other. We have all seen shocking images of sea mammals and turtles choking on plastic and the mountains of unrecyclable plastic piling up on beaches. We’ve read about plastic’s toxicity and the plastic industry’s plans to fight proposed laws to restrict disposable plastics. But Plastic People moves far beyond the issue of plastic pollution to exposing how microplastics have now infiltrated the human body.
Plastic People Website
Plastic People Website
Producer
Vanessa Dylyn
Executive Producers
Dr. Rick Smith
Peter Raymont
Produced by White Pine Pictures
Directors
Ben Addelman
Ziya Tong
Attachments
PRESS RELEASE: "Plastic People" to Have World Premiere at SXSW, Documentary Spotlight SectionSales and Distribution
International Distributor
White Pine Pictures
416-703-5580
Coming Next
A New Brain
A New Brain
What if the brain could be trained like a muscle — strengthened, repaired, even rewired?
Around the world, educators, neuroscientists, and parents are asking whether brain training could be an antidote to some of the most pressing social challenges of our time: rising ADHD diagnoses, the growing number of children diagnosed with learning disabilities, the addiction to social media technology, and the decline in our ability to think critically in an age of AI.
At the center of this exploration is the Arrowsmith Program—the most studied brain training system on the planet. Born from the grit and determination of Barbara Arrowsmith Young, who re-engineered her own brain decades before “neuroplasticity” was known to scientists. Barbara’s personal journey—overcoming her own severe learning disabilities through self-devised brain exercises—remains the catalyst of this story.
This film investigates the frontiers of cognitive training—following students, families, and experts as they grapple with the promise and limitations of re-wiring the human mind. This is not just Barbara’s story; it’s about the future of how we learn and thrive in a world that demands more from our brains than ever before.
At the center of this exploration is the Arrowsmith Program—the most studied brain training system on the planet. Born from the grit and determination of Barbara Arrowsmith Young, who re-engineered her own brain decades before “neuroplasticity” was known to scientists. Barbara’s personal journey—overcoming her own severe learning disabilities through self-devised brain exercises—remains the catalyst of this story.
This film investigates the frontiers of cognitive training—following students, families, and experts as they grapple with the promise and limitations of re-wiring the human mind. This is not just Barbara’s story; it’s about the future of how we learn and thrive in a world that demands more from our brains than ever before.
Writer/Director
Ben Addelman
Producer/Writer
Vanessa Dylyn
Cinematographer
Roger Singh
Sales and Distribution
For distribution and general inquiries, please contact us or visit our online store
In Development
Inventing Glamour: How Dot Ponedel Created the Faces of Hollywood
Inventing Glamour: How Dot Ponedel Created the Faces of Hollywood
Inventing Glamour will reveal the heroic story of the first female makeup artist - a pioneer, who created the iconic faces of early Hollywood. Marlene Dietrich, Claudette Colbert, Mae West, Barbara Stanwyck, Tallulah Bankhead and Judy Garland – they all demanded that Dot be written into their contracts because only she gave them the faces that made them famous.
With exclusive access to Ponedel’s personal journal, we will learn never-before revealed secrets about some of the biggest Hollywood stars – including Ponedel’s best friend, Judy Garland, along with the personal accounts of the girl who came to Hollywood in 1920 without a dime and rose to the top of a fiercely-guarded male profession.
The film will unveil Hollywood glamour today through its key makeup artists and the link to the woman who created the concept of Hollywood beauty.
Producer/Executive Producer
Vanessa Dylyn
Director
Jari Osborne
Beast Hunters of Rome
Beast Hunters of Rome
The Original Deadliest Catch
A Canada-Italy Treaty Co-Production
Much is known about what happened in the amphitheatres of the Roman Empire but very little is known about the Beast Hunters who risked their lives to bring back the original deadliest catch.
Exotic beasts from the far reaches of the Roman Empire were brought to the capital to be part of a grizzly spectacle of slaughter. Thousands of animals were killed in a day in the great Colosseum before 50,000 cheering spectators. It was a bloodthirsty, spectacular event.
But who captured the world’s most dangerous beasts to feed the insatiable need of the crowds of the great Colosseum? And how did they keep the animals alive while transporting them thousands of miles?
For the first time on camera, we’ll mount an extensive investigation to find the evidence and reveal how this cruel industry of the ancient Roman Empire flourished for hundreds of years.
Co-Executive Producers
Vanessa Dylyn
Gioia Avvantaggiato
Urania
Urania
A mini-series based on the book Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women
At the height of his fame, Charles Dickens masterminded a radical social experiment lasting twelve years – one of the greatest preoccupations of his life and yet virtually unknown until now. Based on the recent book, Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women, our film will reveal a vital but unknown chapter in the life of one of the world’s most beloved authors. This feature will delve deeply into the dramatic and moving relationship between women who wanted to escape their miserable lives and Dickens, the famous author who knew their secrets.
In development with Muse Entertainment and Back Alley Films
Producers
Janis Lundman
Adrienne Mitchell
Consultants
Vanessa Dylyn
Anna Stratton
Completed
Arctic Vets Series: In Production with Entertainment One
Arctic Vets Series: In Production with Entertainment One
Arctic Vets - True Champions of the North
Arctic Vets follows a team of animal experts that dedicate their lives to rescuing, conserving, and healing the animals of Canada’s frozen north when they are most in need.
Watch now on CBC
Watch now on CBC
Concept Creator
Vanessa Dylyn
Broadcasts
CBC
Sales and Distribution
International Distributor
.
The Divided Brain
The Divided Brain
Once in a generation, someone puts forth an audacious idea that completely changes the way we see the world around us: is there an imbalance in our modern brain that is affecting how we live and deal with large problems in our society? This subversive theory is the brainchild of Dr Iain McGilchrist, an esteemed neuroscientist and psychiatrist. He argues that over centuries, the values of the left hemisphere have slowly been gaining influence in society, with disastrous consequences.
This has earned him comparisons to Freud and Darwin – but some scientists think he’s a heretic.
Join us on a mind-altering odyssey to explore evidence of McGilchrist’s radical new idea - a filmic quest to discover whether our society has been hijacked by the left hemisphere and what can be done to restore balance.
This is the film one half of your brain doesn’t want you to see.
Broadcasts
CBC’s documentary Channel
Sales and Distribution
For distribution and general inquiries, please contact us or visit our online store
Into the Inferno
Into the Inferno
Feature Documentary - 2016Werner Herzog explores the bitter-sweet relationship between mankind and volcanoes.
When volcanoes exploded in the past, they helped shape us as a species. From our earliest ancestors to travellers battling with the effects of ash clouds on airline flights, our evolutionary destiny has been played out in the shadow of volcanoes. One day in the future there will be another super-eruption like the one that triggered the last ice age. There is a greater chance of a super-eruption happening in your lifetime than of winning the lottery!
Werner Herzog wants to find out why, where and how our lives are inextricably linked with the most destructive and creative force on Earth. In this global odyssey, he teams up with the world’s leading volcanologist, Clive Oppenheimer, to bring the story of the relationship between volcanoes, our planet and human society to audiences around the world.
Available on Netflix
Producers
Andre Singer
Lucki Stipetic
Executive Producers
Vanessa Dylyn
Richard Melman
Director
Werner Herzog
Editor
Joe Bini
Cinematography
Peter Zeitlinger
Awards and Nominations
Nominated for Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary at the 38th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards, 2017
Sales and Distribution
International Distributor
.
Undercover Jihadi
Undercover Jihadi
Feature Documentary - 2017 - 1 hour runtimeCanadian Premiere on Thursday October 26th at 9PM ET | TVO
Undercover Jihadi follows the quest of Mubin Shaikh, a man who went from extremist militant to undercover operative, to expose a major terrorist cell in Canada and send 11 men to prison. Today, he's a well-connected international Counter-Terrorism expert and is on a mission to stop the radicalization of Muslim youth. We follow his journey into counter-terrorism in the UK, Canada, the U.S., Germany and France. Led by a personal duty to Islam, Shaikh takes to the frontlines of the battle against the radicalization of youth at risk.
Producer
Vanessa Dylyn
Director
Barry Stevens
Editor
Sarah Bachinsk
Cinematography
Matt Galllagher
Awards and Nominations
Nominated in the "Top Winner" category at the 2018 Cinema Grand Prix festival - Bali, Indonesia
Sales and Distribution
For distribution and general inquiries, please contact us or visit our online store
The Mystery of San Nicandro
The Mystery of San Nicandro
Feature-Length Documentary - 2012 - 68 mins & 52 minsThe Mystery at San Nicandro is a film that strikes at the core of human identity.
Canadian Premiere on November 18, 8pm ET / 10pm PT | Documentary
At first glance, The Mystery of San Nicandro is a compelling narrative about a messianic southern Italian character that had a mystical vision in the 1920s that resulted in the only mass conversion to Judaism in modern history. But it is much more than that.
Today, something is stirring in Southern Italy that will reverberate throughout the world. This film is the first to document the strange revival of Judaism in the most Catholic country of the world and how North American influence is stoking these flames. This mysterious thread running through the vibrant Italian tapestry will highlight the deep meaning of history, culture, belonging, and identity in the seemingly rootless western world.
Issues of culture and religion are constant themes in multicultural societies in North America and Europe. Many of us as immigrants identify ourselves through our ancestors’ culture and religion. And religious identity has especially come to the forefront in the world as Muslims, Jews and Christians still struggle to live together in harmony.
But what happens when we have lived our lives worshipping one faith and discover the religion of our ancestors is another? What happens to our sense of identity? For some individuals, their lives are forever changed.
The stories in our film are intensely human and powerful – stories of Christians – Italians and North Americans - converting to Judaism in Italy. These are individuals who have discovered, often at a relative’s deathbed that their family roots are Jewish.
Our film begins with the historical story of a mass religious conversion in San Nicandro and threads through its roots in Fascist Italy, to emigration to Israel, through to today’s new religious conversions in San Nicandro– attracting North Americans who are hungry for information about their religious roots.
Through this fascinating contemporary phenomenon, our film will allow the audience to discover the inexorable force of the past and how it shapes our identity and our sense of belonging. And how the echo of our DNA reaches across centuries to claim us.
Producer
Vanessa Dylyn
Director/Writer
Roger Pyke
Screenings
33rd annual Holocaust Education Week at the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto, Ontario November 3, 2013
Treasure Coast Jewish Film Festival - Bay Shore, New York November 2014
Sales and Distribution
For distribution and general inquiries, please contact us or visit our online store
Produced in association with
Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit
Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit
Fixing My Brain
Fixing My Brain
Feature-Length Documentary - 2008 - 52 minsAre we stuck with the brains that we’re born with? – or is the brain really like a highly intelligent muscle, able to change itself through rigorous and specific exercises no matter how old we are?
FIXING MY BRAIN is a documentary which explores the mysteries of how we learn through the dramatic story of Barbara Arrowsmith and the courageous journey of three students in their first year at her school.
Barbara Arrowsmith was born with a “broken brain” Although her brilliant memory had propelled her though a graduate degree, she still couldn’t read a clock, tell right from left, or understand conversations in “real time”. Exhausted by the stress of hiding her weaknesses, Barbara contemplated suicide.
But she was ferociously determined to discover why her brain was “broken”. With extraordinary diligence, she fused several different strands of brain science and using herself as a guinea pig – she fixed her own brain.
Putting herself through a “brain boot camp” for twelve hours a day for many months, using her self-created exercises to stimulate the weak areas of her brain, she achieved extraordinary results. Finally, she was able to tell time, understand logic and understand conversations in “real time”.
When she tried to share her success with educators, they branded her a charlatan – because at that time, (late 70s) people believed that the brain was hard-wired and the brain’s abilities could not be changed. So Barbara opened her own school to help students with learning dysfunctions.
And although the Arrowsmith method focuses on students with learning dysfunctions, it is applicable to everyone. No brain is “perfect” in every area, and even brilliant minds have difficulty with directions or remembering faces. It’s a subject to which everyone at any age can relate.
Barbara’s story is only one small part of the Arrowsmith story – but through it, the audience will discover the heart and soul of an extraordinary character -- a woman driven to achieve and discover in spite of her severe learning disabilities. Motivated by hope and despair and a spirit of innovation and daring, Barbara never gave up on herself – or on the idea that her discovery could save learning-disabled children from the shame and suffering she had experienced as one of them.
Her training system is still the only one of its kind in the world and her role as a visionary leader in education is only now being acknowledged.
As a documentary, FIXING MY BRAIN works on many levels at once --just as our brains do. It challenges our preconceptions of who we are, how we learn, and how we teach our children. And at its widest angle, this is a documentary that opens up the exhilarating possibility that we truly can change our destiny by learning how to change the pathways of our brain.
Producer
Vanessa Dylyn
Writer/Director
Christina Pochmursky
Sales and Distribution
North American Distributor
Carla Bruce
Filmoption International Inc.
514-931-6180 x. 257
The Musical Brain
The Musical Brain
Feature-Length Documentary - 46 mins & 52 minsWith appearances by Sting, Feist, Michael Buble, Wyclef Jean and Dr. Daniel Levitin.
Gemini Award-Winning film
Whether you load your iPod with Mozart or Sting, savour opera or groove to jazz, music plays a profound role in your life. No matter how old you are, or where you live on the planet –your brain is having a love affair with music. And yet until now, no one understood why music has such a powerful impact on us. Thanks to revolutionary neuroscience, the answers to the mystery of music are at last becoming clear.
In a stunning new documentary, MY MUSIC BRAIN, Sting puts himself – and his brain under the microscope of neuroscience and discovers how and why he makes music. While on tour, Sting visited McGill University’s Daniel Levitin, best-selling author of This is Your Brain on Music and had his brain scanned as music experiments were conducted. The results of those scans will literally show the creative process as it unfolds in the brain of one of the world’s best musicians – and his response to seeing his own brain at work.
Sting’s fMRI scans and his in-depth interview about his relationship with music is just part of the story when it comes to understanding how music impacts our brains, our hearts and our lives. And it is that story which MY MUSIC BRAIN will explore – with Sting’s experience as a musician leading the way.
Fascinating and fun, MY MUSIC BRAIN will take the viewer to unexpected places – a rare juncture of science, music and mystery – and to a deeper understanding of how the everyday pleasures of music define us more than we realize.
Producer
Vanessa Dylyn
Director/Writer
Christina Pochmursky
Attachments
Press ReleaseSales and Distribution
For distribution and general inquiries, please contact us or visit our online store
Produced in association with
CTV
National Geographic International
Made in Canada: The Italian Way
Made in Canada: The Italian Way
Feature-Length Documentary - 1 hour runtime
Enter the fascinating world of three Italo-Canadian business empires; listen to the stories of their early struggles to make it in the New World. Watch how they solve conflicts within a family business. Learn about their inspiring secrets of success and how they plan to transfer power to the next generation.
Made in Canada: The Italian Way is an up-close exploration of the Italo-Canadian entrepreneurial spirit – a success that is the lucky marriage of the immigrant belief in hard work and the Canadian openness to innovation and enterprise. We enter the complex world of three extraordinarily successful families: the Ciccolinis, the Pillitteris and the Chiodos; business leaders in insurance, wine-making, and automotive franchises.
We hear the story of their early years of struggle, the evolution of their business and how they integrated their children to help grow their empires even larger. We watch them at work, making the tough decisions, we listen to their stories – some of which have the elements of great drama, and we show their triumphs. We examine how they work and live together, how they deal with conflict and how they have planned to transfer power to the next generation.
For some, successful though they are, how do they deal with major threats of a global economy? How do business practices rooted in old World values such as family loyalty, face the challenges of adaptation for survival and growth in the highly competitive market?
These are families whose patriarchs left a post-war Italy, devastated and limping from the ashes of defeat. This is the story of their ability to be inventive, tough-minded and resilient in the building of their empires in Canada.
Producer
Vanessa Dylyn
Director/Writer
Roger Pyke
Sales and Distribution
For distribution and general inquiries, please contact us or visit our online store
Produced in association with
Omni Television
Exotic Lives
Exotic Lives
Do you want to own a vineyard in Argentina? Run a coffee plantation in Panama? Live on a yacht tax-free? Buy a castle in Budapest? Find a deserted island? Get free of big brother? Open Bread & Breakfast in the Czech Republic?
EXOTIC LIVES is a travel/escape series which explores how ordinary people became fascinating people by rejecting the rat race of modern life and carving a new destiny in far-flung places.
Some of them went looking for romance or a "meaningful" life. Some of them wanted to escape the past or find a new future and fresh adventures. All of them found the courage to re-invent themselves and shed old habits and their fear of change by plunging into different cultures and forging a brand new path in life.
The Stories of Exotic Lives
1. “Dreams Uncorked” The Pugliese Vineyard, Argentina.
Restless and unhappy in Ottawa, Canada young Mauricio Pugliese jumped at the chance when he was offered the job of reviving and managing a vineyard in Argentina. To be sure, there was hard work to be done, land to be cleared, and new vines to be planted. But what an adventure!
Northern Argentina is teeming with rich foliage, haunting rock formations, blue mountain lakes, pungent red wine, and succulent beef. Seduced by this paradise, Mauricio Pugliese seized the opportunity and began a new life.
2. “Living el Dream” Hanging Ten in Nicaragua
Sometimes a life dream becomes an obsession. Don Montgomery is tall and handsome – a blue-eyed athlete and successful high-school teacher. Two years ago he quit his teaching job and took up residence in a remote beach town in Nicaragua to open a surf school and lodge, where clients, friends and his two daughters can “leave their worries behind. To incredulous friends and family he says, “I don’t want to die knowing there were things I was too scared to try. Set against a backdrop of surfing footage and exotic Central American sights and sounds, this is the story of an average man living an extraordinary life.
3. Entrepreneur With a Heart on the Costa Blanca - Karla Darocas
Toronto-born entrepreneur extraordinaire Karla Darocas is living a life she could only have imagined. As a young woman studying art at university, she was already running her own communications business. Moving to California, the career flourished but the heart was lonely. One morning after a restless night crying, she received an email from Jose Darocas, a summer fling she had in Spain many years earlier. Thinking that fate had intervened, she invited him for a visit. But fate revealed more surprises; after Jose arrived, the World Trade Centre was hit. In the midst of it he proposed, and Karla folded her company, gave away her possessions and informed her shocked parents in Toronto that she was moving to Spain to marry her boyfriend.
Today, living with her husband on the Spanish coast, she heads several enterprises that marry social good with good business. She loves her life on the Costa Blanca - a beach which she says is paradise, and there’s no freezing weather! The entrepreneur with a heart is living her dream.
4. Living La Vida in Costa Rica - Dave and Monica Dolezsar
Dave and Monica both worked long hours for the oil and gas industry; he was an engineer and she was in marketing. While they both loved their jobs, they gave it all up, Dave says, because "Why do the same thing for the rest of your life?” So with one-year-old Cassandra in tow, they went looking for adventure in Costa Rica. They bought a little resort with a Tico house, two cabinas, a restaurant and bar on the beach near the Panama border, “a place that most people would only read about in an off-the-beaten track guidebook." It needed work, but they tackled it.
Spectacular views, a beautiful new home, and a thriving new business are only part of the amazing transformation of Dave and Monica’s new vida bella!
Producer
Vanessa Dylyn
Writers/Directors
Jeff Vanderwal
Alan Burke
Sales and Distribution
For distribution and general inquiries, please contact us or visit our online store
Produced in association with
CTV’s Travel and Escape
Discovery HD Canada
Leslie Caron: The Reluctant Star
Leslie Caron: The Reluctant Star
Feature Documentary - 2016 – 1 hour runtimeCanadian Premiere on June 28 at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto
Leslie Caron, the beloved star of classic American cinema, is one of the last witnesses to a golden age of the 20th century. She is a rare triple threat of talent in the worlds of film, dance, and theatre.
Though her early childhood was bathed in luxury, Caron’s life changed dramatically with the start of World War II. The deprivation of those years affected her mental and physical health. Driven by her American mother to pursue a career in the ballet, she found discipline and a professional focus at a young age. At 18, her world changed forever.
Discovered while dancing onstage in France by Gene Kelly, she co-starred in An American in Paris and was catapulted to stardom. Success followed success with musicals Daddy Long Legs and Gigi, and Academy Award nominations and British awards for dramas Lili and The L-Shaped Room. Her life turned into the stuff that movies are made of - international celebrity, lavish parties, and love affairs with powerful men.
She is the only performer who can claim to have danced with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Rudolf Nureyev! Rounding out a career of distinction, more recently she has acted in Chocolat and Le Divorce, and won an Emmy for her appearance on Law and Order.
As an artist struggling to fulfill her destiny, she fought obstacles: the young French ballet dancer of An American in Paris leapt beyond the dancer stereotype to become an award-winning dramatic actress. But with greater success came personal sacrifices.
Our film begins in present-day Paris where Leslie resides, and unfolds as a journey that takes us back to a glorious time in Hollywood. It is a story seen through the prism of a living legend who reveals stories of a life lived large and with passion. It offers a rare and privileged glimpse into the world of the beloved icons of film, dance, and theatre of the 20th century - a world of contradictions, ambitions, dreams, nostalgia, and intense emotion - through one of its most luminous personalities.
Producers
Vanessa Dylyn
Anne Schuchman
Director
Larry Weinstein
Editor
David New
Awards and Nominations
Nominated for Best Biography or Arts Documentary or Series, 2018 Canadian Screen Awards
Attachments
Johanna Schneller interview and review in The Globe and Mail (June 24, 2016) Linda Barnard interview and review in The Toronto Star (June 25, 2016)Screenings
TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto June 2016
American Documentary Film Festival, Palm Springs, CA April 2017
NorthwestFest International Documentary & Media Arts Festival May 2017
Beloit International Film Festival, Beloit, WI February/March 2018
Broadcasts
Turner Classic Movies (TCM), USA February/March 2018
TVO, Canada February/March 2018
Sales and Distribution
North American Distributor
Craig McGillivray
Breakthrough Entertainment
International Distributor
Tracy Beckett
PBS International
Produced in association with
Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit
Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit
The Woman Who Joined the Taliban
The Woman Who Joined the Taliban
Feature Documentary - 2015 – 1 hour runtimeThe Woman Who Joined The Taliban is a deeply personal tale of ambition and betrayal, set amidst the global war on terror.
Canadian Premiere on October 15, 9pm ET | CBC-TV
Beverley Giesbrecht was a publishing executive and devout Christian living near Vancouver when the events of September 11th changed her life. Within seven months, she converted to Islam and began a journey that took her to the heart of Taliban territory in the mountains of Pakistan.
As a Canadian Muslim convert, Giesbrecht saw herself as a bridge between two warring cultures. Her website Jihad Unspun presented the radical Islamist's views to readers in Canada and the West. Determined to present an alternate view of militant islam, she travelled as a journalist to the most dangerous place on earth – the Taliban-controlled mountains of Pakistan - to make a first person documentary.
But before she could finish her project, she was betrayed and taken captive by Taliban fighters convinced she was an American spy.
This film sets out to investigate the strange circumstances surrounding Beverley’s kidnapping amidst Islamic fundamentalism, shifting allegiances, and political intrigue in the lawless tribal territories on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Beverley’s story also illuminates why some people in Western societies become drawn to Islamic extremism — sometimes with disastrous consequences.
What drives a woman to swap a business suit for a burqa?
Why would someone abandon a lush seaside home in a wealthy Vancouver suburb for a madrassa in Egypt? And turn to Salafi Islam?
We ask what authorities knew once it was clear Beverley had been kidnapped. And why they appeared to give up trying to find out what had happened to her.
With exclusive access to the video footage shot by Beverley herself, we follow her journey into the heart of the Taliban. And her transformation from an admirer and defender of jihadist Islamism to disillusionment - until her final betrayal by her Taliban protector.
At its heart, The Woman Who Joined the Taliban is the tragic story of a lost woman looking for meaning and a home -- but who walks into hell. Beverley was never able to bring home the film she meant to make. This film will bring her extraordinary story to light.
Producer
Vanessa Dylyn
Executive Producers
Vanessa Dylyn
André Singer
Director
Kai Lawrence
Writer
Richard O'Regan
Editor
Kathryn Dickson
Awards and Nominations
Richard O'Regan for Best Writing in a Documentary Program or Series, 2017 Canadian Screen Awards
Kathryn Dickson nominated for Best Editing in a Documentary - Short Form, 2016 Canadian Cinema Editors Awards
Attachments
John Doyle review in The Globe and Mail (October 15, 2015) Brad Oswald review in The Winnipeg Free Press (October 15, 2015 For more information on the film please visit CBC First HandScreenings
Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels - Biarritz, France January 2016
Sales and Distribution
International Distributor
Sky Vision
Produced in association with
Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit
Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit
