VIFF welcomes guest curators for Black History Month to honour the past and celebrate brighter futures
February lineup features inspiring cinema, live jazz, and a special tribute to Canadian filmmaker Charles Officer
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Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You.
This February, the VIFF Centre honours Black History Month and celebrates Black voices with two new series guest-curated by Union Street director Jamila Pomeroy and the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Kika Memeh, along with a free screening of Mighty Jerome in tribute to the late Charles Officer.
In addition to bringing back Jamila Pomeroy’s made-in-Vancouver festival hit Union Street for screenings from February 2 to 7, VIFF hosts the director as she guest-curates A New Chapter. Pomeroy has chosen to screen two inspiring international films for this series: Boots Riley’s surreal comedy Sorry to Bother You, and Suhaib Gasmelbari’s Talking About Trees, in which four Sudanese cinephiles attempt to resurrect film culture after years of civil war and oppression.
On successive Thursdays in February, writer Memeh guest-curates Celebrating Black Futures, presented in partnership with the Vancouver Art Gallery. Highlighting Black and African films that reflect the present while demonstrating the exciting future of cinema, this series kicks off on February 8 with Ben Shapiro’s documentary Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes, which delves into the American jazz legend’s inspiring commitment to civil rights. The special event includes live jazz from the Feven Kidane Sextet.
Babatunde Apalowo’s All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White.
Kika will also showcase Babatunde Apalowo’s All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White, which tells a tale of forbidden love in an unsupportive society, and Kelly Fyffe-Marshall’s When Morning Comes, which sees a nine-year-old faced with a move from Jamaica to Canada.
Celebrating Black Futures also encompasses a showcase of four short films on February 22 (Toye Aru’s Gita Boy, Janessa St. Pierre and Courtenay Mayes’s Hair or No Hair, Mayes’s DEAD END, and Brandon Wint’s My Body Is A Poem The World Makes With Me). Ranging from dark comedy to sombre drama, these shorts explore existential crises, beauty standards, and daring ambitions in the lives of the protagonists.
On February 4, VIFF will pay tribute to Officer, one of Canada’s most accomplished and adventurous filmmakers who passed away last year at the age of 48, with a free screening of his documentary Mighty Jerome introduced by the film’s producer Selwyn Jacob.
Program details and tickets are available at VIFF.
Post sponsored by VIFF.
Charles Officer’s Mighty Jerome.