VIFF Centre welcomes guest-curated film series and live music events for Black History Month
Titles span music documentary Play It Loud featuring Jamaican-born Canadian singer Jay Douglas, 1974 Afrofuturist film Space is the Place, and beyond
SPONSORED POST BY VIFF
Atlantics.
Throughout the month of February, the VIFF Centre marks Black History Month with a vibrant lineup of live events, guest-curated series, music documentaries, and more.
VIFF will present the latest chapter of African Cinema Now!, a series curated by Kika Memeh and Ogheneofegor Obuwoma of the Akojo Film Collective. This ongoing program showcases contemporary African cinema by and about Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. Dreaming of Elsewhere delivers six films that touch on the fluid concept of home. Titles on offer include The Pirogue, Mother of George, Atlantics, Chez Jolie Coiffure, Dilli Dark, and Tori and Lokita.
Play It Loud stars music artist Jay Douglas, who will be in attendance for the film’s B.C. premiere.
Kika Memeh curates Celebrating Black Futures, which explores mythical and corporeal transmutations, in partnership with the Vancouver Art Gallery as a response to the exhibitions Firelei Báez and Offsite: Hank Willis Thomas. The series features director C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s dreamy black-and-white fable Mami Wata + Drexciya, which is set in a traditional Nigerian village; and Ephraim Asili’s The Inheritance, about a house in Philadelphia that becomes a safe space for Black folks.
In the realm of VIFF Live, presentations include Feven Kidane and Tiny Pyramids in tribute to jazz-space voyager Sun Ra, with a rare screening of the revolutionary 1974 Afrofuturist film Space is the Place on February 1 at 8 pm. Elsewhere, Quincy Mayes brings Afro-Brazilian soul, funk, and samba to the stage before a screening of City of God on February 22 at 7:30 pm.
Space is the Place.
Jamaican-born Canadian soul, ska, and jazz singer Jay Douglas will be in attendance for the B.C. premiere of Play It Loud on February 7 at 8:30 pm (three more screenings take place from February 8 to 10). Douglas moved to Toronto when he was a teenager in the 1960s, and as lead singer for The Cougars, spearheaded the Caribbean music scene on Yonge Street; but it wasn’t until 2006 and hip-hop’s discovery of Wayne McGhie’s “Dirty Funk” that The Cougars found belated fame and respect. This energizing music documentary by director Graeme Mathieson serves up an engaging slice of social history.
To see a schedule of screenings and browse the full lineup of films on offer during Black History Month, visit VIFF.
Post sponsored by VIFF.
Related Articles
Featured
