A Discovery Of Strangers

Credits

Novel
Rudy Wiebe

Screenwriter/Director
Leonard Farlinger

Synopsis

A feature film adapted from the prize-winning novel and based on the real events of 1820, A Discovery of Strangers is the adventure of famous British explorer, Sir John Franklin and his men, on their first Arctic expedition. Comprised of eighteen Voyageurs and a small group of British officers in three birch bark canoes, they search for a route to the icy Polar Sea when they encounter the Dene Indians. Weather forces them to winter with the Dene and ultimately to discover one another. It is also the passionate love story of Greenstockings, sixteen-year-old daughter of Keskarrah, the Dene Elder, and young Robert Hood, artist, midshipman and Franklin's protégé. Wordless, the lovers devise a language of their own as their worlds collide.

A first contact story, A Discovery of Strangers is a tale of trust and innocence, greed and honour set in the mystical and terrifying primal Arctic wilderness. It follows the thousand-mile trek of these courageous explorers, who like modern day astronauts, risk their lives to discover the unknown but when the exploration fails, it is the Dene upon whom Franklin and his men rely for their very survival.

Film References: Dances With Wolves, Shackleton, The English Patient, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

Reaction To The Novel

*Winner of the Governor General’s Award

"A work of extraordinary originality and beauty."
-The Globe And Mail

"Utterly compelling…painfully beautiful…a triumph."
- Quill & Quire

Status

In development with the assistance of Telefilm Canada, The Harold Greenberg Fund and Movie Central.