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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Design Icon Debbie Travis Comes to OWN in All-New Series La Dolce Debbie

From a media release:

OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network (Canada) announced today that celebrated interior designer Debbie Travis will be joining the OWN (Canada) family with the new documentary series La Dolce Debbie (6X30). The series follows Debbie as she searches for, buys and completely overhauls a 13th century Tuscan property, transforming it into her ultimate dream women’s retreat. La Dolce Debbie premieres Tuesday, February 16 at 8:30 p.m. ET.

La Dolce Debbie takes viewers on design icon Debbie Travis’ most personal journey yet: risking her life’s savings to buy and transform a 13th century medieval watchtower and farmhouse into a luxurious 14 bedroom women’s retreat in Tuscany, Italy. Inspiring, touching, and heart-warming – the series explores the highs and lows of buying and renovating a large property in a foreign country.

In her area of Tuscany, which is deemed an international heritage site, Debbie is forced to conform to rigid historical protection laws and red-tape committees. Working with some of the best architects, designers and tradesmen in Italy, she struggles to grasp the language and assimilate to a new culture, and also has to wrap her head around what it takes to run a 100-acre farm with 800 olive trees and vineyard. While the property slowly transforms, so does Debbie. At the heart of the series is her personal journey to find a new happiness through her desire to create a one-of-a-kind retreat that captures the transformative spirit of Tuscany and the experience of La Dolce Vita – The Sweet Life.

In the first episode, which premieres Tuesday, February 16 at 8:30 p.m. ET, Debbie is on the hunt for an Italian property to transform into the permanent home for her women’s retreats. For more than two years she and her husband Hans scour the country – and when they finally fall in love with the idyllic region of Tuscany, they struggle to find the perfect place.

La Dolce Debbie is produced by Montréal-based WAM (Whalley-Abbey Media).

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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

VisionTV presents the world premiere of Hell: A Survivor’s Guide

From a media release:

On Monday, February 8, at 9 pm ET, VisionTV will present the world premiere of Hell: A Survivor’s Guide, a new Canadian documentary examining the history of a place that has maintained its grip on the human imagination for centuries.

Heaven is usually visualized in less specific ways. It’s a place of eternal light, peace, purity, and happiness. Hell, on the other hand, has been mapped out in excruciating detail. In almost every known description of the afterlife, Hell is located underground – a hot, demonic realm of grim tortures and eternal agony.

To understand our ongoing fascination with this underworld, host Brian Paisley (Apocalypse … When?) will turn to great artists like Homer, Virgil, Dante, Bosch, Doré and Rubens, all of whom felt inspired to create compelling images of Hell.

Paisley also talks to scholars, writers, and theologians, and to a psychologist who has studied why the concept of Hell has had such an impact on our lives, and why, even in secular societies, the idea of Hell can still influence our behaviour.

To supplement the documentary, Asterisk Productions has will be launching http://hellsurvivorsguide.com. The website will include 40 minutes of extended interviews with experts, webisodes, additional written commentary, and recommended readings.

Hell: A Survivor’s Guide was produced by David Springbett and Heather MacAndrew. Moses Znaimer is Executive Producer.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Award-winning Steve Fonyo documentary makes Super Channel debut

It’s hard to feel sorry for Steve Fonyo, but Hurt certainly tries. And, sometimes, writer-director Alan Zweig succeeds.

It is tough though, especially when Fonyo unleashes an expletive-filled tirade against his girlfriend’s ex, rails against Canada for “not helping” (a.k.a. giving him money) and opines that recreational drug use makes sex better. In a classic case of “how the mighty have fallen,” Zweig’s documentary—the Platform Prize winner at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival debuts on Super Channel on Tuesday—traces Fonyo’s life from hero to dude struggling just to eke out a living.

In 1985, at 19 years of age, Fonyo completed his run across Canada, after having lost his left leg to cancer. He did what Terry Fox was unable by dipping his toe in the Pacific Ocean, raised $13 million for cancer research and was named to the Order of Canada. Fonyo exudes pride as he goes through boxes of old awards, medals and a picture of him meeting then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Then came the fall, a constant tumble brought on by the sudden death of Fonyo’s father and continuing into petty crime and drug use. Money dried up and the Order of Canada was taken away.

Hurt follows Fonyo during a year in his life, 12 months in B.C. marked by anger, sorrow and heartbreak thanks to a marriage ending and tough economic times. Yes, Fonyo is largely responsible for his own situation, and the stubborn attitude he shows towards his neighbours, ex-wife and family is the same that urged him across the country back in 1985.

Hurt isn’t a pretty picture. As a matter of fact, it’s downright sad in some spots, especially when Fonyo eats Chinese food off a plate set on top of a recycling bin, but there are glimmers of hope that Fonyo will triumph over his demons.

Hurt airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on Super Channel 4 and Super Channel On Demand.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Mayday flies into Season 15

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I’m always conflicted about watching an episode of Mayday. I’m fascinated by how airplanes work and the unfortunate circumstances that bring them down, but I also love to fly, so seeing a flaming ball of wreckage on a runway sends shivers up my spine. Of course, the point of Mayday‘s real stories isn’t just to focus on the accidents themselves but how such incidents go a long way to improving airplane safety.

Season 15 kicks off Friday at 10 p.m. ET on Discovery with “Fatal Transmission,” the tale of a fiery collision between a United Express commuter flight and a small private plane in Quincy, Ill., that leaves investigators flummoxed. Did the fact the pilot and first mate had been working for 12 hours straight figure into what happened? Did having no flight attendant present during the 20-minute jaunt contribute to the death toll? Have pre-recorded in-cabin safety instructions become merely background noise?

Throughout the course of the episode, the impact multiple takeoffs and landings have on a flight crew, the common practice of letting first mates control the bulk of a flight to acquire hours of experience, and a lack of air traffic control at small airports are all offered as possible reasons for what occurred next: a deadly conflagration that claimed 14 lives.

Mayday‘s strength in storytelling remains the eyewitness accounts, and that continues Friday as flight instructor Paul Walker provides a dramatic and tragic account of what happened. Heartrending news footage continues the story until the National Transportation Safety Board and lead investigator Tom Haueter arrives. It doesn’t take long until the shocking reasons for the accident are revealed.

Mayday airs Fridays at 10 p.m. ET on Discovery.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Four Senses nails winning recipe in Season 3

Carl Heinrich and Christine Ha are cooking up good stuff on Four Senses. Heinrich, the Season 2 winner of Top Chef Canada, and Ha, who took the Season 3 title in MasterChef, are back for Season 3 of AMI-tv’s culinary series sharing recipes with each other and celebrities while traipsing the country meeting with the folks that put food on our tables.

The two chefs—and the Four Senses crew—have hit a real groove in Season 3, returning Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET. The most obvious thing I noticed during a set visit last fall was the confidence the two have in the TV process. Gone are the jitters I saw in the first season, replaced with an understanding of what Four Senses is, and their roles in it. Yes, the program features embedded description for those who are blind or partially sighted and closed captioning for those with hearing loss, but at its heart Four Senses is a cooking show—and a darned entertaining one.

“Christine has had a lot of experience with very big productions,” says executive producer Anne Marie Varner. “This is a little more relaxed and she gets to hone her skills in terms of describing what she’s doing in the kitchen. She’s been very good at being able to point out to our guests and Carl what the challenges are when you’re blind or visually impaired in the kitchen. Carl has really grown in his confidence working in TV and it shows in his performance. You’re seeing a completely different person.”

Celebrity guests in the kitchen include Thursday’s visitor, Chef Corbin Tomaszeski, followed in the coming weeks by CHFI’s Erin Davis, French Chef at Home‘s Laura Calder, Chatelaine‘s Claire Tansey and BreakfastTelevision Toronto’s Frank Ferragine. As for the locations Heinrich and Ha will be visiting, Prince Edward Island, rural Ontario and Kelowna, B.C., beckon for features on lobsters and oysters, butter tarts and goat milk. Varner notes Four Senses is a national program, and she wanted their location segments to reflect that. A Season 3 addition that helped elevate Four Senses is new director Arlene Hazzan Green; the Emmy and Genie award winner is pushing the cooking process to the back burner in favour of stirring the pot through conversation about cooking and accessibility.

“We needed more conversation. ‘Who are you and why are you interested in this?'” Varner says. “She’s really focusing on the performance and learning about the twist that makes Four Senses unique.”

Four Senses airs Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. ET on AMI-tv.

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