 |
|
|
What a difference half a lifetime makes.
|
|
Though this may seem an obvious statement, it's a rare opportunity to see lives lived with the clarity of CBC Newsworld’s thought-provoking and serendipitous new series 35 Years in the Life, to air on Thursday nights at 10pm (ET) beginning June 8th and repeated the next Sunday at 7 PM (ET), for five weeks. It's a series and a title born of one of the great unfulfilled projects in CBC's history.
|
|
In the late 1960's, the network launched a groundbreaking series called Five Years in the Life. Innovative and stunningly forward-thinking, it profiled ordinary and not-so-ordinary young people living their lives in the electric millieu of Canada in the Trudeaumania years. Its mission: to return five years later to follow up on each subject's hopes and dreams. In total, 42 families saw their lives captured on film. However, only a handful were revisited before the series was cancelled and banished to the vaults of CBC's archives.
|
|
But while the series gathered dust, its flesh-and-blood subjects continued to eat, sleep, breathe, create, procreate, stumble, fall and succeed - reflecting in microcosm the shifting fortunes of Canada as it redefined itself in the late 20th Century.
|
|
An inspiration fulfilled, 35 Years in the Life explores what happened to some of those families creating a compelling five-part documentary series that reflects the psyche of the century's most idealistic generation, amid dreams both shattered and realized.
|
|
It presents a mosaic of human experience - enterprising "hippies" whose farm communes would fall victim to the vagaries of love, sex and fractiousness; a pair of Anglo architects in Quebec who would flee the province's turmoil for a career in the U.S.; a useful political activist whose drive would see him elected premier of British Columbia before crashing into a wall of disillusionment; a Jamaican immigrant torn between facing racism head-on in a vibrant Toronto and toiling in relative anonymity in Northern Ontario mines; a brash young separatist intent on seeing an independent Quebec and becoming rich, but who is philosophic about experiencing only one of his dreams; and a star of '60s Canadian variety TV who would "drop out," sail the Caribbean and end up leading a life of selfless devotion to a tragically-stricken mate.
|
|
35 Years in the Life was directed, written and co-executive produced by Bill Kendrick of Island Images Inc.. Richard Games of Salt Water Communications Inc., was cinematographer, editor and also co-executive producer.
(C) All rights reserved, 35 Years TV Inc.
|
|
|
