Just Another Missing Kid
{{Infobox film
| name = Just Another Missing Kid
| image =
| caption =
| director = John Zaritsky
| producer = Glenn Sarty
John Zaritsky
| writer =
| starring =
| music =
| cinematography = John Griffin
| editing = Gordon McClennan
| studio = CBC
| distributor = CBC
| released = {{Film date|df=y|1981|4|7}}
| runtime = 90 minutes
| country = Canada
| language = English
| budget =
}}
Just Another Missing Kid is a 1981 Canadian documentary film, directed by John Zaritsky, about the search for a missing Ottawa teenager.
Summary
Eric Wilson 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 happened. The film focuses on how little help the various police forces were 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 his murder. The long-time criminal and drifter Hatch, who had committed the murder, was sentenced to 26 years in prison, but was released after serving 13. In 1994, he stabbed his girlfriend with a knife and was convicted of assault for which he served 9 months in jail. In a follow-up to the story from 1995, The Fifth Estate reported that Hatch had resumed his drifting. He died in 2000.{{cite web|url=http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/missingkid/update.html |title=CBC News: the fifth estate - Just Another Missing Kid - Update |publisher=Canadian Broadcasting Corporation |access-date=29 June 2012 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121105064546/http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/missingkid/update.html |archive-date=November 5, 2012 }}
Accolades
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. It was nominated for several international awards and won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.[https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1983 1983|Oscars.org]{{cite news |last1=Ahsan |first1=Sadaf |title=Oscar-winning Canadian documentarian John Zaritsky dies at 79 |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/john-zaritsky-obituary-1.6408115 |access-date=5 April 2022 |agency=The Canadian Press |publisher=CBC News |date=4 April 2022}}
Controversy
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.{{Citation needed|reason=Reliable source needed for the whole sentence|date=October 2021}} However, it has since been widely used by other documentary filmmakers.
Adaptation
The story was later re-told in fictionalized form in a made-for-television movie called Into Thin Air. The film starred Ellen Burstyn as the mother and was aired in 1985.
Preservation
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb title|0084185|Just Another Missing Kid}}
- [https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2591051941 The Fifth Estate online - full streaming video of Just Another Missing Kid]
{{AcademyAwardBestDocumentaryFeature1981-2000}}
Category:English-language Canadian films
Category:Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners
Category:Canadian documentary films
Category:Documentary films about children
Category:Documentary films about crime in Canada
Category:Documentary films about law enforcement in Canada
Category:Films directed by John Zaritsky
Category:1981 documentary films
Category:1980s English-language films
Category:English-language documentary films
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