The Knowing

Directed by Courtney Montour

Acclaimed journalist Tanya Talaga brings her evocative storytelling from the page to the screen with her search for a long-lost matriarch named Annie, solving an 80-year-old family mystery. With lush cinematography and evocative storytelling, Anishinaabe journalist Tanya Talaga embarks on a deeply personal search to find out what happened to her great-great-grandmother in The Knowing. Co-directors Talaga and Kanien’kehá:ka filmmaker Courtney Montour (Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again) use archival footage and intimate interviews to piece together the unknown story of Talaga’s family member, Annie Carpenter. In the first two parts of the four-episode docuseries, they skillfully illustrate how hard it is for Indigenous families to get answers from authorities, especially about those who have entered the residential school or Indian hospital systems. ...