TORONTo’S LONGEST RUNNING FREE COMMUNITY FILM FESTIVAL N OVEMBER 14-17, 2018 DANIELS SPECTRUM, 585 DUNDAS ST E. 16th Annual FREE ISSION F REE A C D H M IL D CA R E Reserve your seat today WWW.REGENTPARKFILMFESTIVAL.COM DANIELS SPECTRUM IS AN ACCESSIBLE VENUE. PLEASE CALL FOR MORE INFORMATION, 416 599 7733 We warmly thank our funders, sponsors, members and supporters: Premier Sponsor Government Funders PMS: 2925 PMS: 3005 Festival Sponsors Harry A Newman Memorial Foundation Foundation Sponsors Live it to Learn it Partners Home Made Visible Partners Festival Supporters Lights Camera Lights Camera Action Members Media Sponsor Media Partner 2 16th Annual Acknowledgements . 4 Greetings . 5-9 . Spotlight on Year-Round Programs . 10-11. Festival Staff . 12. Festival Guide . .13 Festival Schedule at a Glance . .14- . 15 Virtual Space . 16-17 . CONTENTS Wednesday, November 14 Emerging Directors’ Spotlight . 18- . 19 Thursday, November 15 Time for Ilhan . .2 0. Rock Rubber 45s . .21 Friday, November 16 Black Cop . .22 . The Feeling of Being Watched . 23. Saturday, November 17 Breakfast and a Movie: The Breadwinner . 24. Home Made Visible . 25-. 27 Ghost-Landing . 28-30 Closing Night Film & Awards Ceremony: Rafiki . 3 . 1 Workshops & Panels Intro to Shooting on Film . 3.2 . Digital Activism Panel . 33. Live Script Lab . 33 Festival Awards . .34 . 3 BOARD OF DirectORS SUPPOrt Team SHOrtlisting AdvisOry Alana Hood Chad Mohr Alyssa Bistonath Chair Web Developer Arika Jiang Asad Ali Moten Derek Aubichon Babs Hopkinson Vice Chair Graphic Designer Cayley James Dasola Dina Christine Peplinski Emeike Geldof Dija Mambu S ecretary Bookkeeper Gursimran Datla Arzu Abbasova Saroja Ponnambalam Melissa Gonik Dina Awad Trailer Maker Soni K Mark Lawson Michelle Mulgrave ADDITIONAL SUPPOrt General PROgram AdvisOry Ravi Srinivasan AbuBaker Al Bach Aman Vellani Sonia Jog Juneille Celso Amber Williams-King Mandeq Hassan Chrisann Hessing PAST BOARD MEMBERS Nora Duffy Hanako Fujii Deanna Wong Jason To Gail Picco A Teresa M Ho EDUcatiON PROgram AdvisOry C Kourtney Jackson Marc Proudfoot K Maryan Haye Michelle Mulgrave no Sunny Kim WL Thank you to our Lights, Camera, Action Members! E Lights $25+ Camera $100+ Action $250+ D Barb Crisp Amanda Pileggi Alana Hood Betty Xie Christine Peplinski Patricia Harris G Camille Johnson Harry Smaller Sonia Jog E Heather McKee In honour of Dr. Scott Forsyth Louanne Chan from the Cinema & Media Arts M Vanessa LeBlond department at York University Michaela Beder ents Terri Rodak Special Thanks to Ali Vanderkruyk Jason Maghanoy Michael Oszlak Alison Duke Jermyn Creed Michèle Pearson Clarke Amanda Neale-Robinson Jillian Peever Michelle Lovegrove Thomson Ambereen Siddiqui Judy Lung Mona Gedi Ariel Smith Katrina Cohen-Palacios Richard Fung Cayley James Kerry Swanson Robin Cass Christina Sackeyfio Kimberly Christmas Sureya Ibrahim Denise Soueidan-O’Leary Konrad Skreta Sandra Cunningham Elle Alconcel Lisa Murzin Sabrina Jahan Elsa Ngan Lissette Mejia Stephen Gong Gracia Dyer Jalea Matt Hardstaff Suze Morrison Greg Woodbury Melissa Gonik Tim Sebert Gursimran Datla Mercedes Watson Wanda Vanderstoop Indu Vashist Michael Moir 4 On behalf of the Regent Park Film Festival Board of Directors, welcome to the 16th Annual Regent Park Film Festival! Every year we offer programming that is meaningful to the community we serve, bringing people together through shared experiences and interests. Our 16th year has been no exception. We hosted Under the Stars, which was attended by thousands in the Regent Park community and beyond. We had another successful year of industry internships through Live It to Learn It and we launched Home Made Visible, a project that expands representation of Indigenous and Visible Minorities in Canada’s media archives. Alana Hood I’d like to thank our donors, sponsors and contributors. Without you, none of this would be possible. I’d also like to Chair extend my sincere congratulations to the Regent Park Film Regent Park Film Festival Festival staff for another excellent year. You embody our values of community, authenticity, accessibility and diversity. I think you’ll find that the films we show at this year’s festival exemplify what the Regent Park Film Festival is all about: Breaking stereotypes and showing that no one place or person G ETIN has just one story. Enjoy! RE G I arrived to the Regent Park Film Festival this past summer, S and I spent my first moments listening to community mem- bers who have rode the wave of change. Common points of tension and triumph emerged, as did shared and disparate hopes for the future of this community. But something deeper emerged, a sense that change had not arrived without their participation in shaping it, that they, themselves, had been transformed into change-makers. Drawing from this same change-making spirit, we bring to you a festival that explores transformation and resilience, history and memory, renewal and decay. As you experience the festival, I encourage you to listen deeply to the micro-stories, the ones Tendisai Cromwell that move you and the ones that infuriate you. And consider Executive Director how they weave together, just as this community has, to tell a Regent Park Film Festival larger one about the power of individual and collective action. 5 In this year’s program, we consider the rituals of remembering and recovering that are rooted in the textures and affects of immigrant domesticity. Exhibiting works that play with found footage, home video, and the genre of “docufiction,” we ask what it means to archive diasporic geography, rife with spectres of displaced peoples and razed architectures. We articulate, in this lineup, our varied intimacies with “home”: the literal built structure one inhabits—either occupied with a prolonged impunity, or leased in transit. How did we arrive here? How do we realize the home that is now lost? How do we recover ancestral, inherited memory that the city tends to raze by way of a quiet, tepid violence: in the form of anti-black policing, racialized misogyny, or the Aaditya Aggarwal continual demands made of working-class communities of Programmer colour to shrink deeper into economic peripheries. Regent Park Film Festival We consider the pain in these losses, and the value in mourning. In this program, we strive, in a humble way, to address the agony and the joy of living, on this ground, in this moment. G ETIN RE G Indigenous, Black and People of Colour have fought to tell difficult and important stories that mark our past in this S nation. What happens when the stories of our past also include joy? How does it change us? Remembering joy is at the heart of Home Made Visible. HMV provides free digitization of old home movies for families to enjoy, while also engaging with re-framing the concept of archives. As part of this reflection, we are proud to present 7 commis- sioned works at the 16th annual Regent Park Film Festival. Huge thanks to Elizabeth Mudenyo, HMV Project Manager, the RPFF Team, our Advisory, commissioned artists and the Ananya Ohri Canada Council for the Arts for making this all possible Artistic Director, Home Made Visible Regent Park Film Festival 6 Simon Brault, O C. ., O Q. Director and CEO Canada Council for the Arts G ETIN RE PMS: 2925 PMS: 3005 The Ontario Arts Council (OAC) is proud to support the Regent G Park Film Festival (RPFF) in its celebration of the many stories found in our communities. S Now in its 16th year, RPFF continues to thrive. It is faithful to its mission to showcase films that speak to the lived experiences of culturally diverse audiences and of people from low-income communities. Throughout the year, RPFF continues the fes- tival energy—empowering and supporting emerging filmmak- ers from Regent Park and beyond by offering free workshops, screenings and real-life opportunities in film and television. On behalf of the OAC’s board and staff, I wish all the filmmakers, Rita Davies organizers and attendees an excellent 2018 Festival. Chair Ontario Arts Council 7 Welcome to the 16th Annual Regent Park Film Festival. Toron- to Arts Council is proud to support Toronto’s longest running free community film festival. The City of Toronto, through Toronto Arts Council, invests public funds in the arts, allowing millions of Torontonians and visitors to enjoy incredible artistic activity. We strongly believe that every Torontonian should have access to the transformative benefits of the arts. We applaud the Festi- val for its leadership in bringing high-quality, diverse films to residents of Regent Park, with a focus on individuals from low income and public housing communities. Congratulations to the staff and board of Regent Park Film Nova Bhattacharya Festival, and thank you to the volunteers who make this ex- citing event possible. President Toronto Arts Council Wishing you continued success. Yours truly, G ETIN RE G There are few better ways to bring a community together than a festival celebrating the arts. And there are few fes- S tivals that do this as well as the Regent Park Film Festival. As a long-standing supporter of film, RBC is proud to have been the Premiere Sponsor of this film festival for the past seven years. As a multicultural event dedicated to showcas- ing independent works relevant to inner-city communities, the Regent Park Film Festival brings together many diverse people to enjoy and engage with film as a means of artistic expression and a catalyst for change. And thanks to workshops and school programming, it is also making a difference in this community and to students across the GTA all year round. Kris Depencier Congratulations to this year’s filmmakers, organizers and volunteers who have helped make this year’s Regent Park Regional President Film Festival a success.