La patrie d'abord!!!
An entrepreneur's obsessive dream of developing an Okanagan Lake island into a Middle Eastern-themed amusement park leads to a spiraling path of legal turmoil and financial ruin, with a hostage-taking…
La patrie d'abord!!!
An entrepreneur's obsessive dream of developing an Okanagan Lake island into a Middle Eastern-themed amusement park leads to a spiraling path of legal turmoil and financial ruin, with a hostage-taking and bomb plots along the way. Eddy Haymour is a barber, an eccentric entrepreneur, a psychiatric patient, a kidnapper, and a hostage taker. A controversial character, he has been called both madman and visionary. Our 90 minute documentary, Eddy's Kingdom, chronicles the saga of Haymour's obsession with creating an island theme park in Kelowna BC, which culminated in a hostage taking in Lebanon. His present day quest is to confront the current BC government and get the island back in his possession. At his side is his daughter Fadwa, the only family member who still talks to him. Tells the story of Lebanese-Canadian Eddy Haymour, his rags to riches immigrant dreams dashed by efforts of various levels of government and others in authority, and his responses in return. Proverbially with nothing in his pockets upon arriving in Canada from Lebanon, he, using his entrepreneurial spirit largely as a barber, was able to amass enough money to purchase Rattlesnake Island located in Okanagan Lake in BC's interior in the mid-1970s, his plan to build a theme park on the otherwise unserviced island. Regardless of local reaction to this plan, he began construction with the necessary approvals, when, out of circumstance, he was forced to halt his plans by the BC government upon the park's soft opening. Wanting what he considers justice for the actions against him, he ended up issuing threats against many government officials including then premier W.A.C. Bennett, the island located in his own riding. Subsequent legal battles, the outcomes of which, including a stint for Eddy in a psychiatric institution in being deemed mentally unstable, resulted in Eddy taking further actions in return, arguably culminating in he leading a group of relatives storming the Canadian Embassy in Lebanon with an armed standoff as they held several inside the facility hostage. Forty years later during production of this film under his own circumstance of being a free man, he still fights for what he considers what is rightfully his, namely Rattlesnake Island and what he lost monetarily in the venture, in the process some still seeing him as a terrorist and/or delusional, while others seeing him a victim of the system especially in being a visible minority. His home life is also presented where his focus on realizing his dream with the island led to a estrangement with many of his children and both his now ex-wives. —Huggo
La patrie d'abord!!!
Comedy,Drama,War
Film Details
An entrepreneur's obsessive dream of developing an Okanagan Lake island into a Middle Eastern-themed amusement park leads to a spiraling path of legal turmoil and financial ruin, with a hostage-taking and bomb plots along the way. Eddy Haymour is a barber, an eccentric entrepreneur, a psychiatric patient, a kidnapper, and a hostage taker. A controversial character, he has been called both madman and visionary.
Our 90 minute documentary, Eddy's Kingdom, chronicles the saga of Haymour's obsession with creating an island theme park in Kelowna BC, which culminated in a hostage taking in Lebanon. His present day quest is to confront the current BC government and get the island back in his possession. At his side is his daughter Fadwa, the only family member who still talks to him.
Tells the story of Lebanese-Canadian Eddy Haymour, his rags to riches immigrant dreams dashed by efforts of various levels of government and others in authority, and his responses in return. Proverbially with nothing in his pockets upon arriving in Canada from Lebanon, he, using his entrepreneurial spirit largely as a barber, was able to amass enough money to purchase Rattlesnake Island located in Okanagan Lake in BC's interior in the mid-1970s, his plan to build a theme park on the otherwise unserviced island. Regardless of local reaction to this plan, he began construction with the necessary approvals, when, out of circumstance, he was forced to halt his plans by the BC government upon the park's soft opening.
Wanting what he considers justice for the actions against him, he ended up issuing threats against many government officials including then premier W.A.C. Bennett, the island located in his own riding. Subsequent legal battles, the outcomes of which, including a stint for Eddy in a psychiatric institution in being deemed mentally unstable, resulted in Eddy taking further actions in return, arguably culminating in he leading a group of relatives storming the Canadian Embassy in Lebanon with an armed standoff as they held several inside the facility hostage.
Forty years later during production of this film under his own circumstance of being a free man, he still fights for what he considers what is rightfully his, namely Rattlesnake Island and what he lost monetarily in the venture, in the process some still seeing him as a terrorist and/or delusional, while others seeing him a victim of the system especially in being a visible minority. His home life is also presented where his focus on realizing his dream with the island led to a estrangement with many of his children and both his now ex-wives. —Huggo.