An Eye-Opening Reclamation of Indigenous History – The Tyee

April 30, 2026

Vancouver Island filmmaker Tanner Zurkoski makes his directorial debut at DOXA with ‘Illustrated Legacies,’ a Knowledge Network original film.

Animation wasn’t originally part of Tanner Zurkoski’s plan. He’d been working on documentaries for years, mostly as a production manager and line producer. Then the world changed. And as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.

“When COVID hit, my documentary skill set was suddenly very irrelevant for a couple of years,” Zurkoski says. The Cree and Métis filmmaker is based on Vancouver Island. During the pandemic, he ended up working at an animation studio, where he developed a new approach to documentary filmmaking.

Read More: https://www.thetyee.ca/Presents/2026/04/30/Eye-Opening-Reclamation-Indigenous-History/