Director Barry Greenwald
Production Peter Raymont, White Pine Pictures
Cut Nick Hector
Camera John Westheuser
Language english

Description:
In the early 1960s, three 12-year-old Inuit are taken from their families in the Canadian Arctic and sent to school in the south. From that point Peter, Zebedec and Eric live in Ottawa with foster families, far away from home. The government officials who initiated this ‘social engineering’ project called it an “experiment”. Some of the most talented Inuit children – all three had very high IQ scores – were to be prepared for leadership positions in their communities in a white, Western environment. Years later, the experiment was rated a success. The young men became activists and leaders of their people, fighting for the rights of the natives in Canada and all over the world. But at what cost? They are well-educated, speak English fluently, but they have lost their own culture, language and the closeness to their families. They suffered from serious alcohol and drug problems later and became strangers in their own home country. Barry Greenwald uses impressive archive material, family pictures, government files and interviews with the protagonists to tell this unusual story – a thoroughly captivating visual reflection on the political and personal effects of an experiment in assimilation. AS