Daily News Tuesday, November 07, 2024
OMNI TV Wins CAB Gold
"On behalf of Let's Talk About It, Rogers OMNI Television is proud to be acknowledged by the CAB with private broadcasting's most prestigious honour for this timely and socially significant Canadian production," says Madeline Ziniak, Vice President and Station Manager of OMNI Television. "This award further underlines the importance of third language accessible documentaries in a national context."
Let's Talk About It was produced by Noemi Weis of Filmblanc (the same production house that won the CAB Gold Ribbon last year for Gloriously Free) and directed by Deepa Mehta. Under Mehta's direction, the children of several victims of domestic violence – all of them from immigrant families – were armed with a video camera and told to ask their parents "any question you want about the abuse." The resulting production, with its spontaneous tell-it-like-it-is conversations between parent and child, powerfully demonstrated how domestic violence can be born in certain cultural and ethnic traditions and beliefs; ultimately, Let's Talk About It exists as a catalyst for open dialogue and discussion among all ethnic and cultural communities.
In addition to English, Let's Talk About It was versioned Punjabi and Spanish. The project made its debut on OMNI Television in fall of 2024, and has been screened frequently, including at such events as "Finding Common Ground," the Ontario Women's Directorate November 2024 conference on reducing domestic violence, featuring a keynote address from Gloria Steinem.
Let's Talk About It was produced with 100 percent funding from OMNI's Independent Producers Initiative, a $32.5 million independent production fund and seven-year funding commitment created and made available by OMNI Television for independent producers to create third-language/ethnocultural programming. The documentaries will be broadcast in their original language and transcreated into English as well as a range of other languages.
