A young girl escapes her captors and makes a desperate 911 call.

Creative team

Writer/director/producer: Ervin Chartrand

Filmmaker’s statement

In the wake of the murdered and missing indigenous woman, I was inspired to do this film.

In 2013 I heard a news story about a young girl who was found wandering the streets in the north end of Winnipeg. She was half naked when the police found her after she made her desperate 911 call.

She mentioned she was kidnapped and held for three days along with other women. The police eventually searched the north end of the city but couldn’t locate the residence where she had been held.

My film Trafficking doesn’t quite end the same – it ends tragically.

About Ervin Chartrand

Ervin Chartrand (Ojibway/Métis) has directed many films including If this Was Right with rap artist and CBC host Wab Kinew (nominated for an Aboriginal People’s Choice Award for best music video 2008), two short dramas including Sister for APTN’s Short Cuts program and multiple documentaries for television.

He won the best new talent award at the 2005 Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival for 504938C and the ReelWorld Award for outstanding Canadian short film for Patrick Ross at the 2006 ReelWorld Film Festival in Toronto. He directed Patrick Ross through First Stories, a competitive documentary production program coordinated by the NFB Prairie Centre.

Ervin has also worked on APTN television series The Sharing Circle as a camera assistant and the Canadian TV series Tipi Tales as a puppet wrangler for two seasons.

He studied acting at the Academy of Broadcasting Corporation in Winnipeg and participated in the Aboriginal Broadcast Training Initiative of the Manitoba Indian Cultural Education Centre.

More recently, Ervin finished a documentary with the National Film Board entitled Fight, which airs on Netflix. He’s in pre-production with Buffalo Gal Pictures and director Norma Bailey on a feature entitled Red Dead Skin.

Ervin is currently at the University of Winnipeg in his third year of a bachelor of arts in film studies.

His most recent work projects are Trafficking and Lifer. Lifer screened at the 2014 First Peoples Festival in Montreal.

Ervin is originally from Camperville, Manitoba. His experience as a gang leader who was able to reform his life after prison was the subject of The Sharing Circle‘s television documentary Long Road, Full Circle. He often gives presentations to at-risk youth about his life experiences.