GIL CARDINAL ~ Writer

Gil Cardinal is a director, writer, producer based in Edmonton, Alberta. Of Metis descent (Cree and French), the greater part of his work has related to aboriginal themes.

His film and television career began in 1973, behind a studio camera at Alberta's educational television service, ACCESS. Leaving the studio floor he became a staff producer-director. The 1980's were spent freelancing, principally with the National Film Board, up until the establishment of his own production company in the early nineties (Great Plains Productions), and most recently, working as an independent under the banner of Homeland Films.

His documentary work covers a range of topics, including the search for his own aboriginal heritage and natural family, Foster Child; the inclusion of First Nations in the 1992 Constitutional negotiations, Our Home and Native Land; fetal alcohol syndrome, David With F.A.S. His most recent work - Totem: the return of the G'psgolox pole - documents the efforts of the Haisla people of Kitamaat Village, B.C. to repatriate a totem pole from Sweden back to their community.