ABOUT THE FILM
It should have been the Canadian dream. A kid from a small prairie town is scouted by a famous Junior-A coach. The coach mentors and tutors him all the way to an NHL dream.
Except the coach was Graham James, a now-infamous sexual predator whose behaviour was abetted and ignored through two Western League coaching stints and one in Europe.
And the kid was Sheldon Kennedy, a National Hockey League player whose self-destructive behaviour finally made sense when he came out to the world as a survivor of sex abuse at the hands of James, his coach with the Swift Current Broncos.
SWIFT CURRENT is a devastating portrait of a man who struggles to come to terms with his brutal childhood trauma, and a startling depiction of sexual abuse's long-term impact.
ABOUT JOSHUA ROFÉ
Joshua Rofé is an award winning documentary filmmaker whose first documentary LOST FOR LIFE – about juveniles who are serving life in prison without parole – was released in 2014 by SnagFilms and the BBC (for whom it broke ratings records in the UK), has sold to 60 countries worldwide, and debuted on iTunes as the #5 best selling doc and has been a huge hit on Netflix.
It world-premiered as a centerpiece film at AFI DOCS 2013, and has been a critical darling. Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post called the film "a paradigm shifting movie"…from Yahoo Movies’ lead critic, Thelma Adams: “Director Joshua Rofé has created a tight, extremely well-researched documentary that addresses juvenile offenders with a record of heinous crimes sentenced to life without parole — hence they are lost, for life. The movie allows the audience to have an internal debate about the justice of this irrevocable sentence for juvenile offenders. But its power lies in the director's ability to get up close and pull the truth from his subjects."
Rofé received the Rising Star Award at the 2015 Canada International Film Festival for SWIFT CURRENT - the film was also selected as the Opening Night Film at the 2015 Rendezvous With Madness Film Festival in Toronto . Rofé currently has several projects in development with Alex Gibney's Jigsaw Productions and Asylum Entertainment.
ABOUT SHELDON KENNEDY
Sheldon Kennedy won a Memorial Cup, World Junior Gold Medal and skated for three teams in his eight-year NHL career. He is best known for his courageous decision to charge his Major Junior Hockey league coach with sexual assault for the abuse he suffered over a five year period while a teenager under his care. Through this disclosure, and the important work that Sheldon continues to do, he has become an inspiration to millions of abuse survivors around the world.
Sheldon has been instrumental in bringing governments, public and private sector partners together to work collaboratively to influence policy change and improve the way child abuse is handled. He has influenced changes in Canadian law and has taken his message to the International Olympic Committee and the US Senate.
Sheldon is the Lead Director at the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre, the first-of-its-kind in Canada, offering full wrap-around services for victims of child abuse. He is also the Co-Founder of Respect Group Inc., which provides empowering online abuse, bullying and harassment prevention education to sport organizations, schools and the workplace.