The Wiebe family

The Wiebe family of 11 at breakfast in Chihuahua, Mexico.

Focal Point - Convictions

Earlier this year, Robin Schlaht BFA’92 co-created the interactive documentary Convictions for Legacies150, a National Film Board series of photo-based digital projects exploring ideas of home and legacy. Convictions follows the Wiebes, a traditional Mennonite family, as they emigrate from their Old Colony community in Chihuahua, Mexico to an uncertain future in Canada, reversing the path that their forebears took almost 100 years earlier.

For the full Convictions interactive documentary, visit http://legacies150.nfb.ca/convictions/

The oldest girls, Suzie and Greta, do the dishes.
The family prepares to leave the Mexican desert, the only home they’ve known. The car is packed with belongings and children.
Cleaning the yard before leaving.
Getting ready to be on the road by 6 am.
Middle child Maria picks the first flower of spring instead of leaving it for the new tenants.
Driving across the Mexican desert.
The first night in Canada is spent at a cousin’s house, where the kids watch Lassie over and over on a laptop, to improve their English, they say.
Eva misses the dolls she had to leave behind.

Robin Schlaht is a Regina-based director, producer and writer of documentary and dramatic film and television projects. Chief among Schlaht’s early films are the documentary Moscow Summer, shot in Russia in 1995, and The Heart Becomes Quiet, about survivors of the Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. Schlaht’s first dramatic feature film, Solitude, starring Lothaire Bluteau, premiered in 2001 to rave reviews throughout Canada and internationally. His 2007 documentary To Be Romeo & Juliet accompanies actors portraying Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers in three different countries. And in 2008, Schlaht’s documentary series A Few Good Men & Women, following police recruits through their training at Saskatchewan Police College, premiered on Canadian television to rave review. More recently he participated in the I Heart Regina compilation film, and produced the 2013 documentary ChristCORE, directed by Justin Ludwig. In 2017 Schlaht produced the documentary U R Here, directed by twelve graduating University of Regina film students.

Progress is made on settling in, the day warms up, and, despite it all, hope and joy are never far from the surface for this family.
All the immigration applications have to be made within three weeks of arriving in Canada.
The morning is chilly and there is only one heater for the entire trailer.