- Hi, I'm Cameron Bailey,
the Co-Head and Artistic Director of TIFF.
There's a film from the very beginning of cinema
called Watermelon Eating Contest.
Thomas Edison made it in 1896
to show two Black men eating watermelons, as comedy.
Even with all the great Black filmmakers
who've been working for over a hundred years
to tell our own stories,
the movies from then to now
have a long history of promoting racism
by showing Black people as ridiculous, dangerous,
stupid or, worse, absent,
not there at all.
So when we got to thinking
about how to share movies and conversations about movies
during Black History Month,
we decided to look forward instead of back.
Our theme for February is Black Futures.
Dr. Robyn Citizen, a member of our programming team,
came up with the idea in conversation with me,
Lydia Ogwang, Ikoro Huggins-Warner, and more.
TIFF's month of Black Futures is meant to imagine
possibilities in cinema for Black people,
Black bodies, and the nearly infinite communities
of the Black diaspora.
We've chosen films that showcase
the brilliance of Black creativity,
the call and response between filmmaker and audience,
and the persistence of our presence, instead of absence.
I hope you'll join us.
(music)
- Hello, I'm Robyn Citizen,
the Senior Manager of Festival Programming at TIFF.
And I'm inviting you to the Black Futures on Film series,
launching during Black History Month
on digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This theme was intended to align with the goals
of Black Futures Month, which was established
by the Movement for Black Lives in 2015.
Opal Tometi, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter,
said, "The past is a great teacher,
"but true students and beneficiaries should always ask,
"where do we go from here?"
We must envision our future
and actively bend the arc towards justice.
North American cinema has many stories set
during the Civil Rights era.
But I wanted Black Futures on Film to focus attention
on how the legacy of racial oppression affects Black lives
and political realities in the present.
More importantly, Black Futures
imagines possibilities, interventions,
and alternate ways of organizing political
and personal relationships that can transform
Black lived experiences.
While 2018's Black Panther amplified interest
in Afrofuturism as a film and literary genre,
I see the Black Futures on Film programme
as overlapping with but distinct from Afrofuturism,
which typically features speculative elements
futuristic settings, alternate realities,
and an emphasis on technoculture.
Instead, these selected films will, in various ways,
depict Black characters in the present,
exploring themselves, making visionary choices
towards individual and collective liberation,
creating space for healing, new types of love,
familial arrangements, and self-expression.
These journeys are informed
by the histories of our community,
yet look forward to what's next, too.
These possibilities are reflected not only
in the film content,
but their visual language narrative structure and mediums,
such as animation, where Black creators
have been historically underrepresented.
The other goal for this series was really
to centre Black Canadian stories and creators.
One of TIFF's missions is to champion Canadian cinema.
And since Black diasporas have represented a crucial part
of the Canadian story for centuries,
spotlighting this group of creators is long overdue.
In this series,
there are films that you may already be aware of,
such as Wanuri Kahiu's Rafiki.
Kahiu directed the ecological Afrofuturist film
Pumzi in 2010, and Rafiki played TIFF in 2018.
The story follows two teenage girls who develop a romance
in Kenya, where homosexuality is illegal.
Aesthetically, Rafiki is at the vanguard
of the Afrobubblegum movement,
which was co-founded by the filmmaker,
and represents "a fierce, fun and frivolous
representation of Africa."
Rafiki's saturated neon colours
overall joyful vibe, and youthful soundtrack
are balanced with a look at the political
and cultural realities that are affecting
the girls' love story.
- "I want my normal life back."
- Many will also be familiar with homegrown talent
Charles Officer, and two of his films are in this series.
His debut film, Nurse.Fighter.Boy, played at TIFF in 2008.
In the film, a struggling single mother
with a close relationship to her sensitive
12-year-old son, Ciel, meets a troubled boxer.
Officer's stylized visuals,
his use of colour, and the tender rendering
of how some people come into your life
at exactly the right moment is really extraordinary.
There's also Officer's award-winning documentary
Unarmed Verses, set right here in Toronto,
as well as Jean of the Joneses,
the debut of Torontonian Stella Meghie,
who has since directed The Weekend
and last year's The Photograph, starring Issa Rae.
The final feature of the series is the stunningly
photographed Mother of George, from 2013.
Directed by Andrew Dosunmu,
starring playwright and Black Panther performer
Danai Gurira, and frequent Jim Jarmusch collaborator
Isaach de Bankolé,
the film takes a close look
at a Nigerian couple in Brooklyn trying to start a family
under the watchful eyes of their community.
I'm also very excited to present a short-film programme
of exclusively Canadian filmmakers.
Martine Chartrand's Black Soul is animated
and uses a rare glass-painting technique
for a vibrant time-hopping journey through Black histories
and art as seen through the eyes of a child.
Mariner, by Thyrone Tommy, played at TIFF 2016
and was a Canada's Top Ten pick that year.
This film is a masterclass
in social pressure, tension, memory,
and their effects on a young man during
one of the most stressful periods of his life.
Sinking Ship, by Sasha Leigh Henry, just premiered
in TIFF's Short Cuts programme last year,
but it's already one of my favourite depictions
of a spiralling relationship.
You'll notice that the surroundings reflect
the deceptively civil couple's real emotions.
Marilyn Cooke's Wanted: Strong Woman, from Quebec,
is a rich portrait of a nurse who stumbles
upon a very surprising part of her personality,
in between her busy day job
and being a caretaker for her ill uncle.
As a Black woman,
this question of what it means to find yourself
amidst expectations that you'll be
in service of others is so important.
We also have an earlier work
from Kelly Fyffe-Marshall,
the filmmaker of the TIFF 2020
Changemaker Award-winning Black Bodies.
From 2017, Haven begins with something
that many Black women will remember:
Sitting between our mother's legs getting our hair done.
It ends with a revelation.
What Fyffe-Marshall accomplishes here in four minutes
will stay with the viewer for long
after the short run time of the film.
Finally, Kourtney Jackson's Wash Day
is a warm and intimate exploration of Black hair
and where our self-perceptions
overlap with how we present ourselves to others.
Black Futures on Film features are available
on digital TIFF Bell Lightbox starting February 5th.
And the short programme is available February 19th.
I really hope you enjoy the series and that the films offer
a kaleidoscopic view of Black lives
and a glimpse of the world
the characters, and us can build for ourselves.
(music)