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Loyalties
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Loyalties (1999)
This year, the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television is proud to present
the Canada Award to the documentary Loyalties.
The Canada Award, supported by the Multiculturalism Program of the Department
of Canadian Heritage, honours excellence in mainstream television programming
that reflects the racial and cultural diversity of Canada. It aims to promote
greater opportunity for ethnic and visible minority professionals within the
broadcasting industry on both sides of the camera.
Written, directed and produced by Lesley Ann Patten for Ziji Productions Ltd.
and co-produced by Kent Martin for the National Film Board, Loyalties is a journey
into the past, brought about by the extraordinary conjunction of two women in
the present. Carmelita is a young woman born into the migrant military lifestyle,
returning to Nova Scotia to a black
community that is closed and wary of outsiders. Carmelita feels she wants to
contribute to these little known relations and whether they accept or reject
her, she wants to give voice to her heritage. She meets with Ruth who was raised
in a tight loving family
of US Southerners. Ruth wants to reveal what slavery was like, but without saying
that her relatives were the perpetrators of evil.
Lesley Ann Patten believes that the lives of two people can represent the need
for cultural acceptance for all. "The bravery of Carmelita and Ruth inspires
the rest of us to think we might meet their standard of loyalty. Loyalties is
primarily a story about courage." she adds, "To be `loyal' in this case
means to have the courage to help another human being, in the process one is
willing to be inconvenienced. This kind of loyalty demands opening one's own
trembling heart and by doing so, help another person uncover their innate dignity
and brilliance."
Loyalties is a documentary of significant insight and drama that asks the viewer
to suspend prejudice and witness the lives of two women with very different backgrounds
in search of reconciliation. Along with the Multiculturalism Program of the Department
of Canadian Heritage, the Academy appreciates the need for cultural significance
in Canadian television programming and we are honoured to bestow Loyalties with
the Canada Award for its unique portrait of our country's diversity.
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