If you're interested in true crime documentaries and you get to the end of Netflix's vortex over the holidays, you might want to consider checking out the documentary film The Exhibition, which is now available to watch on Amazon Prime Video, as well as on YouTube.
Over six years, filmmaker Damon Vignale followed Vancouver artist, Pamela Masik, as she attempted to make a name for herself through an exploitative series of paintings of the victims of Robert Pickton.
The 2013 film won an International Emmy Award in the Arts Programming category, and while it effectively tells the story of one Vancouver artist, it tells a much more important one about the victims of a serial killer who was able to go undetected for years.
The plot revolves around Masik, a painter who is seemingly unaware of the moral repercussions of their work. She states that her project is "not about memorializing [the victims]" and in scenes of the film is shown repeatedly stabbing and slashing painted canvases with a large knife, in mock acts of murder.
The film goes into darker territory - that of the actual killings - by way of interviews with reporters like Jeremy Hainsworth who covered the trial for the Associated Press (and who now works for our publication as an investigative reporter).
Lorimer Shenher, the former VPD detective who worked the case and wrote the authoritative Pickton-investigation book, That Lonely Section of Hell, is featured. Shenher is one of many who round things out in terms of telling the story of the botched investigation.
However the most impactful scenes are the ones with the families and friends of the victims, with Indigenous leaders, and victims' rights advocates who are able - and have the authority - to figuratively paint pictures of the very real humans whose lives were cut short... without profiting from it.
They're quite something to watch.
The Exhibition (2013)
Amazon | YouTube
