Filmmaker and former Wabasca resident Aaron Sorensen is pitching involvement in a new TV show.
He’s looking for a $250,000 investment to make The Nation happen.
According to the report in the M.D. of Opportunity council’s Jan. 11 agenda package, to make it fly, a First Nations, Metis Inuit (FNMI) investment partner is needed. The community that gets on board, would then have an episode, or episodes, filmed there.
“Most communities pay to have a big show come shoot there,” writes Sorensen in his letter to the M.D.
He lists some well-known actors who he says are “in consideration” for roles in The Nation.
Sorensen is the writer and director of a couple of films set in northern Alberta – Hank Williams First Nation and Guitar Lessons, which came out in 2022. Back in the 1990s, he worked as an economic developer officer in Wabasca, and it was there he gleaned much of the material that ended up in his first film.
The Nation, Sorensen writes in the fundraising letter to the M.D. (among others) , is “a comedy mockumentary like The Office – but on the (reservation).”
Sorensen writes in the letter that shooting is to run for six weeks, starting in May. All it needs is that $250,000 investment from an “FNMI partner. If it does well, as we expect it will,” the partner will get its money back, “and a second season will be ordered.”
Council accepted the request for information, meaning council will not be funding the show.
