Trudeau is a 2002 television miniseries and biography dramatizing the life of former Canadian Prime MinisterPierre Elliott Trudeau. It aired on CBC Television on Sunday and Monday evenings and was written by Wayne Grigsby and directed by Jerry Ciccoritti. The miniseries was one of the highest-rated Canadian television programs of the year, resulting in 8 wins and 3 nominations. Two of the wins were from Directors Guild of Canada; one being the DGC Craft Award, as Jerry Ciccoritti won Outstanding Achievement in Direction and Dean Soltys won Outstanding Achievement in Picture Editing and the other being the DGC Team Award. As well, it won several Gemini Awards including Best Actor, Best Writing and Best Direction. Colm Feore also won Monte-Carlo TV Festival's Best Performance by an Actor. "With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, Trudeau is a beautiful show – the best Canadian political teleplay since Denys Arcand's Duplessis 25 years ago, and maybe the best ever." The miniseries follows Pierre Trudeau through the major events of his political mandates up to the patriation of the Canadian Constitution. A few of the major characters in the film are fictional, or composite characters. It was filmed in various locations in Canada, but mainly in Halifax, Nova Scotia and at Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Distributed in both official languagesEnglish and French, it was released on 31 March 2002. A prequel, Trudeau II: Maverick in the Making, came out in 2005, examining Trudeau's early life. This $8-million, four-hour CBC production was originally designed as a "double shoot," to be filmed in both French and English versions; however, it ended up being made in English only – even though most of the actors, including lead Stéphane Demers, are Québécois.
In several interviews at the time of the premiere, actual Trudeau PMO bureaucrats commented on the general accuracy of the film; even Trudeau himself said, "'That,' Pierre Elliott Trudeau pronounced, 'is a very good film.'" However, there is one major exception. Most characters in the film refer to Trudeau as "Mr. Prime Minister." This is improper Canadian governmentprotocol; the prime minister is simply referred to as "Prime Minister", although it is not uncommon for the Prime Minister to be addressed by the former as well as the latter. It is notable that actor R. H. Thomson refused to use the scripted address and ad-libbed instead.
