EXCLUSIVE: After we consider key cities related to the Civil Rights wrestle and Black liberation motion in North America, Atlanta, Montgomery, AL, New York, and Oakland come instantly to thoughts. However we shouldn’t overlook Montreal.
Within the Nineteen Sixties, the metropolis within the province of Québec grew to become a nexus for the motion, seeded by two pivotal occasions: the Congress of Black Writers at McGill College and the coed occupation at Sir George Williams College (now referred to as Concordia College). That little recognized story is advised within the documentary True North, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Michèle Stephenson, which can make its world premiere on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition. We’ve your first have a look at the movie within the trailer above.
Courtesy of Studio 112
“By never-before-seen archival footage and intimate first-person testimonies, the movie revisits a charged period of resistance, the place Black college students and activists challenged institutional racism that sparked reverberations throughout the globe,” notes a synopsis. “Taking a hemispheric view of Black resistance, True North connects threads from the Caribbean, Canada, and the US, tracing the shared legacies of colonialism and state oppression.
“On the coronary heart of the movie are the voices of elders, who lived by this era and whose contributions have largely gone unrecognized. Their tales floor the movie’s narrative, providing a uncommon and poignant perspective on the period. By their lens, True North turns into each an act of remembrance and a name to motion for brand new generations.”
Director Michèle Stephenson
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Stephenson was born in Haiti of Haitian and Panamanian heritage. She spent lots of her childhood in Montreal. Now primarily based in Brooklyn, she and her husband Joe Brewster directed Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Challenge, which gained a Primetime Emmy Award for Distinctive Benefit in Documentary Filmmaking, in addition to the 2023 Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at Sundance. That very same yr, Stephenson and Brewster additionally directed Black Women Play: The Story of Hand Video games for ESPN Movies; each Black Women Play and Going to Mars have been shortlisted for the Academy Awards.
True North will maintain its world premiere at TIFF on Saturday, September 6 at 12:15 pm at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto. Its second public screening will happen on Monday, September 8 at 10:00 pm, additionally at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto.
‘True North’
Courtesy of Studio 112
Within the TIFF program, the pageant’s chief documentary programmer Thom Powers calls True North “searing and galvanizing,” including the documentary “illuminates a tempestuous second in Canada’s reckoning with its personal racism — and reminds us of the lasting energy of collective motion.”
Powers continues, “Alternating between intimate interviews with those that lived by the protests and startling archival footage — together with highly effective statements from activist and future Dominica Prime Minister Rosie Douglas — True North is a transferring tribute to the valiant younger individuals who dared to face up for his or her rights and cast an impactful contribution to the story of Black liberation.”
True North is directed by Michèle Stephenson and produced by Leslie Norville (The First Wave, Black Life: Untold Tales). Stephen Chung is the cinematographer; the movie was edited by Shannon Kennedy, Sarah Enid Hagey. Andy Milne composed the unique rating.
Watch the trailer for True North above.
