As wonderful as it is to start a Vancouver day with a walk through Stanley Park, my favourite route along the seawall offers a reminder of the worst air disaster in Canadian history.Nestled beside a playground at Ceperley Park, and looking out over the gray waters of English Bay, is a magnificent crescent-shaped stone monument inscribed with the names of 329 people who died on flight Air India 182.
On June 23, 1985, a bomb planted onboard flight Air India 182, which began its journey in Vancouver, exploded, sending the plane crashing into the waters along the Irish coast. Everyone on the plane perished including more than 100 children. The monument takes the shape of the plane's flight path between Canada and Ireland and offers a surprisingly comforting place to visit.
The story has rarely been out of the news since 1985, especially in Vancouver, where the bombs were placed and the accused were tried. Last summer, director Sturla Gunnarsson began work on Air India 182, a documentary about the tragic events.
Air India 182 will screen at Hot Docs 2008 (April 17 to 27), in Toronto, as the festival’s opening Canadian film. CBC will air the film at a later date.
"The conspiracy was Vancouver-based, most of the victims were Canadian and it has profound implications about the way we think of ourselves and the society we live in,” said Gunnarsson, right, in a statement.
“I hope this film goes some way toward distilling a very complex story and giving a voice to the Air India families, who are among the most graceful and dignified people I've ever met.”
It’s ground that’s been covered before, in books like Death of Air India 182, by Salim Jiwa, and in Bharati Mukherjee’s collection The Middleman and Other Stories. But the details of the attack and the subsequent investigation and court cases are so complex, that’s its difficult to imagine anyone distilling this story, which is really at least 329 stories, into a single film.
Gunnarsson is well suited for the challenge. His extensive credits include the features Beowulf & Grendel, Such a Long Journey, the acclaimed fact-based TV movie Scorn and the Emmy Award-winning documentary Gerrie and Louise, set in South Africa. His 1982 documentary After the Axe was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
His choices suggest an appetite for complexity and in interest in exploring the contradictions of human nature, and this story certainly offers a surfeit of both.
Other Hot Docs Highlights:
All Together Now, the behind-the-scenes look at Cirque du Soleil's new show Love, (inspired by the music of the Beatles) will also make its debut.
Other Canadian highlights include Dilip Mehta's The Forgotten Women, about India’s surplus of impoverished widows and Triage: Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma, which follows the ex-leader of Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres back to Somalia and Rwanda. And for serious Canadiana, there’s Junior, which exposes the peachfuzzy underbelly of junior hockey.
Get the full meal deal at http://www.hotdocs.ca/
Final note: Inderjit Singh Reyat, who pleaded guilty in 2003 to manslaughter for building the bomb used on Flight Air India 182, is the only person convicted for participating in the attacks. He received a five-year sentence.
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