A band of siblings who were once robbers, thieves and killers of the west, decide to fulfill their fathers dying wish of abandoning their life of crime and pursuing the path of the holy. A post-apocalyptic Western about a divinely inspired family that must battle the most horrific forces of evil, testing their faith and evolving each one of them.
Depressed and reeling from the recent death of his wife, Tom has built up quite a gambling debt. He goes to stay with his wealthy Aunt Florence in hopes that she will write him into her will. When a nasty creditor makes it clear that Tom is out of time, he devises a plan with Elodie, the undertaker's daughter, to rob the graves of the rich townspeople buried in the cemetery across the road. After plundering the graves, Tom arrives back at Florence's house and events take a dark turn. Tom begins hearing and seeing strange things that seem to coincide with the deaths of the people he robbed. Even more disconcerting... he appears to be the only one sensing the occurrences. One question lingers: Is Tom's conscience playing a trick on him... or is he really being haunted by those he stole from?
The early 1960s: In preparation for his Bar Mitzvah, a Jewish boy, Max Glick (Noam Zylberman) from a small Manitoba community with an overbearing family tries to navigate his coming-of-age with his family's condescension and bigotry using his sarcastic, Jewish humour. The town's rabbi dies, and a sub-plot develops in which Max's father (Aaron Schwartz) and grandfather (Jan Rubes)-both synagogue leaders-are saddled with a traditional Hassidic rabbi who sticks out like a sore thumb among the otherwise assimilated Jewish community. To make matters more difficult, Max likes a Catholic girl (14 year old Fairuza Baulk in just her third film), whom he later competes with in a piano competition. The quirky, fun-loving rabbi tries to help him with his problems, yet harbours a secret ambition of his own.
Filmed in Winnipeg and rural Beausejour, Manitoba, Canada.
This rarely-screened teleplay written by Rick Salutin offers a dramatic glimpse into Canada’s Red Scare that pre-dated the rise of McCarthyism in the United States. John Grierson and his National Film Board of Canada become targets of an anti-Communist blacklist in the immediate post-war years, after Soviet clerk Igor Gouzenko produced documents revealing a spy ring operating in Canada. With a cast featuring Eric Peterson as Grierson, Saul Rubinek as Gouzenko, and Aaron Schwartz as Communist Party MP Fred Rose, this forgotten piece of Canadian history is brought to life in a very compelling CBC drama.
