Description

AUDIENCE AWARD – Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival | BEST PICTURE EDITING IN A DOCUMENTARY – Directors Guild of Canada | Nominated for 4 Canadian Screen Awards | KAT AWARD, BEST DOCUMENTARY – Together! Disability Film Festival

Law and Crime • Child Abuse • People and Children with Disabilities • People with Mental Illness or Intellectual Disabilities • Treatment and Rehabilitation • Institutionalization • Psychology & Psychiatry • Disability Rights and Neuro-diversity • Indigenous Lives

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Date of Completion: 2021 | Run Time: 88 minutes​​ | Language: English with English subtitles | Captions: Yes | Includes: Transcript | Director, Writer & Co-Executive Producer: Barri Cohen | Producer: Craig Baines | Co-Executive Producers: Steve Ord & Peter Raymont

Time and again, we are confronted with the revelations of brutal legacies of violence and the damage wrought on traumatized lives. Indigenous children from residential schools, boys and girls in the hands of Catholic priests, elders locked up in nursing homes, and disabled, institutionalized children: what links their often-horrendous treatments, the ensuing lawsuits and class actions, and survivors’ demands for apologies and reparations? UNLOVED explores this central question as the filmmaker sets out to uncover the mystery and story of ALFIE and LOUIS, her two long-dead half-brothers whose lives were the product of the larger tragedy of North America s disastrous treatment of intellectually disabled children. The POV mystery story widens in focus to encompass the story of former institutional residents, like PAT SETH and MARIE SLARK — two survivors who launched a 2010 landmark class action lawsuit against the Province of Ontario (in Canada), seeking redress for the pain, suffering, abuse and neglect inflicted upon thousands of children and youth institutionalized at Huronia from 1945 to 2009. It was the first such class action of its kind in Canadian history. Many of film’s participants are former residents and staff from Huronia. Their testimony brings a rare and bracing glimpse into how they lived with daily incursions on their dignity without love.