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August 2006
 Ervin
Chartrand (Métis) has directed two award-winning
short documentaries and the short fiction Sister. He won
the Best New Talent Award at the 2005 Winnipeg Aboriginal Film
Festival, for 504938C, and won the ReelWorld Award for
Outstanding Canadian Short Film at the 2006 ReelWorld Film Festival
for Patrick Ross. He directed Patrick Ross through
First Stories, a competitive documentary production program coordinated
by the NFB Prairie Centre. Chartrand has worked on the camera
crew of the APTN television series The Sharing Circle.
He studied acting at the Academy of Broadcasting Corporation in
Winnipeg, Manitoba, and participated in the Aboriginal Broadcast
Training Initiative of the Manitoba Indian Cultural Education
Centre. Chartrand's experience as a gang leader who was able to
change his life in prison was the subject of The Sharing Circle
television documentary Long Road, Full Circle. He often
gives presentations to at-risk youth about his life experience.
Chartrand is from Camperville, Manitoba.
"I searched most of my life trying to find out who I was
and what I was put on this earth to do. I followed a path of destruction,
before I found myself behind prison walls and over came the most
challenging times. I wanted to reach out to all the troubled youth
and talking at schools wouldn't cut it, so I took a broadcasting
course, not knowing what path it would take me down. I believe
spiritually that things happen for reason, and we just have to
look within ourselves to see what we as humans are capable of
doing. Now I don't take things for granted, and learn from my
life experiences, so that is why I do what I'm doing today, making
films of what I know best."
Screened by NMAI
Image credits:
Ervin Chartrand - courtesy of the filmmaker
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