For Viola // Free Screening: Spaces for Us

For Viola

Showings

Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema Fri, Sep 23, 2022 8:30 PM
Film Info
Runtime:50
Copyright:2021
2022
Country Listing:USA
Germany
France
Italy
Canada
Cast/Crew Info
Director(s):Simon Davis
Jason Sondock
Topaz Jones
Ian Kamau

Description

Tickets: FREE

While this film is presented free of charge, if you wish to extend your support, please consider a donation of $10 in recognition of the value of the work presented, and in honour of Viola Desmond, featured on the $10 banknote, at checkout. Half the proceeds will be shared directly with the filmmakers, who also receive screening fees.


For Viola returns to the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema with Spaces for Us, a pair of acclaimed shorts by multitalented Black artists Topaz Jones and Ian Kamau. Each mining a precious personal archive, Jones and Kamau employ the mediums of documentary and hip-hop to reflect on coming-of-age and claiming space within their respective communities of Montclair, New Jersey, and Toronto, Ontario. Following the screenings, Spaces for Us will present a conversation between the films' creators on the shared themes that animate their work, both musical and visual.

Don't Go Tellin' Your Mama
D: Simon Davis, Jason Sondock & Topaz Jones | 2021 | USA, Germany, France & Italy | 38 mins

In his stunning Sundance award-winning visual album, rapper and singer Topaz Jones offers a thoroughly modern and timely reimagining of The Black ABCs, a flashcard system developed by a group of Chicago teachers in the 1970s. With messages like “A is for Afro” and “S is for Soul Sister,” the cards promoted images of Black learning and joy in an era where the vast majority of materials created for kids were centered on whiteness. Now, 50 years later, the multi-talented Jones—along with directing duo rubberband—updates the meaning of each letter of the alphabet to reflect on aspects of contemporary Black identity. Lensed with lush, eye-popping style by Lemonade cinematographer Chayse Irvin, Don’t Go Tellin' Your Momma is an unforgettable sensory experience with a powerful social message.

We Went Out
D: Ian Kamau | 2022 | Canada | 12 mins

As a teenager, Toronto artist Ian Kamau had few formal places to call his own. He and his friends each shared modest apartments with their mothers, affording them little privacy. All members of the downtown hip-hop community of the 90s and 00s, they responded by claiming the city’s in-between spaces: its sidewalks, stairwells, rooftops and rail paths. Two decades on, Kamau’s We Went Out assembles a core crew of those same friends to reflect on coming of age and forming community in those liminal zones. The spaces they valued didn’t always value them in return—but they remain important and formative venues in our city’s cultural landscape.

Post-screening Q&A with We Went Out director Ian Kamau, filmmaker Claire Prieto, musician Clairmont The Second, and Hot Docs moderator Julian Carrington.

Clairmont The Second
The critically acclaimed artist and director paints pictures showcasing a world we survive. With a gleam of optimism and strong love for his hometown he doesn't fail to recognize there's still work to be done within. His curated cinematic sounds and visuals partnered with his thought-provoking lyricism, clever wordplay, soulful yet gritty production, and sharp artwork have garnered Clairmont recognition for both music and visual art. With his latest project "Full Circle" Clairmont continues to break the mold of what a music artist can be.

Claire Prieto is a Canadian film director and producer, known as one of the first Black filmmakers in Canada. Most recently executive producer of documentary series Echo and co-producer on feature film Step; Claire Prieto-Fuller built a reputation for developing the talents of emerging filmmakers of colour in Canada as producer of the New Initiatives in Film program at the National Film Board in the mid-1990s, founding president of the Black Film & Video Network, and along with Roger McTair was a partner in the Toronto-based production company, Prieto-McTair Productions.

Claire has directed, produced, line produced and production managed a variety of productions, including: Lord Have Mercy, Love Songs, Raizin’ Kane and Exhibit A – Secrets of Forensic Science and the award-winning, Survivors, Black Mother Black Daughter and Older Stronger Wiser for the NFB, Some Black Women, It’s Not an Illness, Home to Buxton, and Jennifer Hodge: The Glory and the Pain.

Claire has also received awards for her work, including: The Award of Merit – City of Toronto, Woman of Distinction – Arts & Entrepreneurship – YMCA Toronto, and the Industry Angel Award from the Reel World Film Festival. In 2007 she Received the Award of Distinction from Women in Film & Television – Toronto, and in 2010, a Lifetime Achievement Award from Caribbean Tales Festival.

Claire retains membership in the Director’s Guild of Canada, she has also been a member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Women in Film & Television – Toronto and the Canadian Independent Filmmakers Assoc. (now DOC).

*Claire Prieto is also Ian Kamau (Prieto-McTair’s) mother.


For Viola: Hot Docs' screening series centering Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC)-led stories and filmmakers, named in honour of Canadian civil rights icon Viola Desmond. This series seeks to affirm Hot Docs as a space of inclusion for BIPOC creators and audience members alike. In order to minimize barriers to audience participation, all screenings in this series are free of charge.

For Viola is supported by

Meet the For Viola programmers in this video.

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