I wrote the screenplay for a half-hour animated film called First Contact/Premier Contact, which will be premiering next month in Montreal. I also helped to write grant applications to raise the funds for its production.

January 4, 2016.
Media Contact: G. Scott MacLeod
514-487-8766

Montreal Studio to Release First Contact Animated Film
Montreal, QC- MacLeod Nine Productions is happy to announce that the 27-minute animated film First Contact-Premier Contact will be released in spring 2016. In pre-production since 2013, the film tells a story of early encounters between Viking settlers and the proto-Beothuk. Their meeting goes smoothly at first, but turns hostile within the year. When a chance to return to good relations presents itself, people must weigh the risks.

Told from women’s perspectives, the fictionalized tale foreshadows certain tragic outcomes of subsequent relations between Canada’s settlers and its First Peoples—while also exploring the moral danger, the creative challenge and the rich potential of encountering the “other.” The animations incorporate authentic visual motifs from both of the featured cultures into a vivid, pencil-and-watercolour style.

First Contact-Premier Contact was supported by a production grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, an Independent Filmmaker Assistance Program ACIC grant from the National Film Board of Canada and by contributions from private donors.
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About MacLeod Nine Productions:
Based in Montreal, MacLeod Nine Productions is an independent film studio with a focus on telling stories of identity, history and individual lives. It recently completed The Water of Life (www.thewateroflife.ca), a feature-length animated series on the untold histories of Quebec and Canada in collaboration with internationally acclaimed oral storyteller Mike Burns.