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Bev Jones is an Ojibway woman from Keeseekoowenin, a First Nations reserve in western Manitoba. At the age of three months, she was apprehended by officials from children's aid and sent to a distant, non-native foster home. Six years later she was suddenly extracted from her foster family and returned to the reserve, where she experienced extreme abuse -- a child with neither mother tongue, familial bonds nor cultural identity. Later she was again uprooted and lived with her foster family. For years Bev Jones shifted between these two cultures, two cultures that grew within her as the separate poles of her now shattered sense of self and place. In Policy Baby: The Journey of Rita/Bev, Bev recounts the story of her life and the lives of the people affected by this upheaval. She created the phrase "policy baby" to encapsulate her all-too-common story of dislocation, loss and, ultimately, reconnection to her Aboriginal self. In Canada, it is estimated that over 16,000 Aboriginal children, now adults, were disconnected from their families under such policies in the 1950s and 1960s. Policy Baby: The Journey of Rita/Bev, tells the story of two cultures and two histories, and of a woman who threads a pathway to healing across extremely unstable ground. Bev takes us on her journey that visually moves from reserve to small town, to the streets of Vancouver and back to the reserve. It is a journey that powerfully demonstrates that home is truly where the heart is. This is a documentary that will appeal to varied audiences: those that are interested in history, those who have shared a similar experience to Bev and to the vast number of people who can identify with the difficult road that Bev has traveled. Policy Baby: The Journey of Rita/Bev had its world premiere at DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia and has since screened at the Yorkton Short Film Festival in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. The film continues to make the film festival curcuit and could be screening at a film festival near you. PAST DOCUMENTARY PRODUCTIONS: In the Mind of Robert J. Sawyer (one-hour documentary)An intimate documentary about the Nebula Award winning sci-fi author. Wayson Choy: Unfolding The Butterfly (secrets & memories) (one-hour documentary) A
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