Just Another Missing Kid

"Just Another Missing Kid" is a documentary film about the search for missing teenager directed by John Zaritsky. Eric Wilson had left his native Ottawa in July 1978 in a Volkswagen camper on a trip to Boulder, Colorado. Somewhere in Nebraska he disappeared. The movie traces how his family and a private investigator work to find out what had happened. The film focuses on how little help were the various police forces and is an indictment of the apathy and bureaucracy of the legal system on both sides of the border. Raymond Hatch and Bertram Davis, hitchhikers Wilson had picked up, eventually confessed to the murder.

Originally produced by CBC Television for the documentary news program "the fifth estate", it was broadcast on CBC television to much acclaim in 1981. It was released in theatres in the United States in 1982. In Canada it won an ACTRA Award for the best television program and garnered a number of international awards including the 1982 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

In this film, Zaritsky broke new ground for documentaries by having the interview subjects recreate their actions for the camera. This caused some controversy as some critics and filmmakers felt these recreations did not make it a true documentary. In later years Zaritsky himself agreed the technique should not be used. However it has since been widely used by other documentary filmmakers.

The story was later re-told in fictionalized form in a made for television move called "Into Thin Air". The film starred Ellen Burstyn as the mother and was aired in 1985.

References

* [http://imdb.com/title/tt0084185/ Just Another Missing Kid] at the Internet Movie Database.
* [http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/missingkid/ The Fifth Estate online - full streaming video of Just Another Missing Kid] ]

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title=Academy Award for Documentary Feature
years=1982
before="Genocide"
after="He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'"