A documentary about a family reconnecting after a lifetime apart, directed by award winning Saskatoon-based filmmaker Tasha Hubbard, will make its world première at Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival in Toronto on May 2.
Written by Hubbard and StarPhoenix reporter Betty Ann Adam, whose family takes centre stage in the documentary, Birth of a Family tells the story of four siblings who were separated as infants and adopted into different families across North America during the Sixties Scoop.
“Marie Wilson, a commissioner from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, had urged me to document the gathering of my family,” Adam said. “So, I talked to the people that I trusted and Tasha was willing to take it on.”
“The whole painful story of the Sixties Scoop is only beginning to be told,” Hubbard told the National Film Board (NFB) in an interview.
“It’s a complex chapter, one that can’t be reduced to a single defining narrative. When Betty Ann brought this story to me, I realized that it personalized history in a vivid and original way. Birth of a Family is about loss and disconnect, but it also speaks to the generative and reparative gestures that people like Betty Ann are making to address the damage of the past.”
The film, which was shot in Banff over seven days in September 2015, follows the siblings as they reunite for the first time. With no shared memories in their decades apart, the siblings set out on a journey to understand their history, create connections with one another and build their rediscovered family together.
Adam had met separately with each of her siblings before the camera began to roll, but it was in the Calgary Airport that her siblings met each other for the first time.
“There was a lot of anticipation, excitement, delight and satisfaction (when we all met for the first time),” Adam said.
Adam and Hubbard will be in Toronto for the première of the film, but Adam said she also looks forward to another more personal screening that will take place in Los Angeles with her siblings and Hubbard.
Once Birth of a Family has premièred in Toronto it will make its way to Saskatoon, but the details have not yet been finalized, Adam said.
The documentary was produced by Bonnie Thompson and executive produced by David Christensen for the NFB’s North West Studio in Edmonton.
