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Dickie Bonnie
Bonnie Dickie is an award-winning documentary film and video director and writer living and working in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
She was trained as an English teacher and worked in Yellowknife, NWT and Melbourne, Australia before embarking on a career with CBC North as a radio announcer and television producer. She is co-author of A Winnipeg Album, Glimpses Of the Way We Were, a pictorial history of Winnipeg's early days.
Bonnie's first two films for the NFB are Sandra's Garden and A Web Not A Ladder, which won awards at the New York and Columbia International Film and Video festivals as well as the Yorkton Film Festival. Hollow Water is her third film for the National Film Board. It recounts the attempts of an Ojibway reserve in Hollow Water, Manitoba to end years of abuse and violence. The community decided to give offenders the chance to face sentencing in a healing circle.
She has this to say about working on this film:
"The issues facing Indigenous people on both sides of the Arctic Circle are the same and my goal as a filmmaker has always been to get out of the way as much as possible and let people tell their stories in their own way.
"The people of Hollow Water taught me that getting out of the way was not necessarily the only choice I could make. Being whole heartedly involved, in other words becoming part of the process, was far more honest. The camera and my crew literally became a part of their sharing and healing circles.
"This film is a testament to what getting involved is all about. It can move mountains. It can transform not only individuals but an entire community. That is what Hollow Water is doing. That is what they have already done."
