Podcasts about charles officer

In this episode, Canadian Screen Award-nominated actor, singer, and performer Karen LeBlanc joins host Marriska Fernandes to talk about her multifaceted career. Karen's passion for performing led her to the renowned musical theatre program at Sheridan College. After graduating, she sang with several bands such as Glass Tiger and her own R&B band, Midnight Hour. On stage, she's performed in shows such as "Rent" and "Outrageous," and toured the world with the Legends In Concert series channelling Tina Turner. Her career spans film and television, with standout roles in "Nurse.Fighter.Boy," and series like "Trailer Park Boys," "Producing Parker" and "The Playboy Club." Recently, she starred as Vanessa King in Oprah Winfrey's TV Series "The Kings of Napa," took on the role of Dr. Lilly Crawford, in CBS's "Fire Country," and plays Lynette Miller in "Ginny & Georgia." Karen and Marriska chat about chasing craft rather than fame, feeling seen by Charles Officer when filming "Nurse.Fighter.Boy," and how sometimes being your best self means saying no. A podcast hosted by Marriska Fernandes, produced by The Brand is Female and powered by Telefilm Canada. Follow Telefilm Canada on Instagram Follow The Brand is Female on Instagram Watch the video of this episode

As the encampments at Canadian universities grow, guest host Molly Thomas talks to an expert about the steps to divestment and if it makes a difference. Two event organizers Dalton Higgins and Powys Dewhurst talk about the impact of Charles Officer on them as Black men. And Molly talks to Nigara, the Toronto-based Afghan judo superstar who is going to the Olympics as part of the Olympic refugee team, if you ever wondered how judo is like life, you will want to listen.

On December 1, 2023, Charles Officer passed away at age 48. The award-winning filmmaker was revered in the national arts community, having directed documentaries such as Invisible Essence, about the cultural impact of The Little Prince, and The Skin We're In, a film adaptation of author Desmond Cole's popular essay on racism in Canada. His movies were purposeful and personal, tackling topical issues with incisive commentary and deep research. The 2024 Hot Docs film festival in Toronto will be commemorating Officer's life with a tribute screening of his 2010 film Might Jerome on May 4, including a Q&A panel with some of his industry colleagues. Two friends and collaborators join Culturally Jewish to describe Officer's unique life as a Black Jewish arts worker in Canada: Jake Yanowski, who cofounded the production company Canesugar Filmworks with Officer, and Michael Levine, one of Canada's foremost literary agents. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

NBA News, NFL News, MLB News, MLB hotstove WNBA News, NHL News, CBS's Bob Hearts Abishola, NBC's Law & Order, Chicago Med, ABC's Grey's Anatomy, A Farewell to Norman Lear, Charles Officer, Myles Goodwyn & Frances Sternhagen! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/on-the-radar/support

This is part two of our new mini-series diving into the making of The Porter. In this series, I am thrilled to be joined by the key members of The Porter's creative team including Marsha Greene, Annmarie Morais, Arnold Pinnock, Charles Officer, and R.T. Thorne.In part two, we dive into the production of the show. We discuss tips for financing, why the series was shot in Winnipeg, and the casting of the series.Be sure to watch The Porter every Monday at 9 pm EST or catch up now on the CBC Gem app.follow: @CanadianMadePodcastSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/canadian-made/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

This is part one of our new mini-series diving into the making of The Porter. In this series, I am thrilled to be joined by the key members of The Porter's creative team including Marsha Greene, Annmarie Morais, Arnold Pinnock, Charles Officer, and R.T. Thorne.In part one, we discuss the development and evolution of the series.In next week's episode, we dive into the production of the show and the team weighs in on the challenges along the way.Be sure to watch The Porter every Monday at 9 pm EST or catch up now on the CBC Gem app.follow: @CanadianMadePodcastSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/canadian-made/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Building onto his cover story this week, Norm talks to Arnold Pinnock, Annmarie Morais, Marsha Greene, Charles Officer and RT Thorne – the creative team behind the new CBC drama The Porter – to explore the genesis of the show and what it means to them to have made it. The Porter premieres on CBC and CBC Gem Monday (February 21) at 9 pm ET. 

Yazmeen is a Muslim Indo-Caribbean TIFF Next Wave Filmmaker, Hot Docs Accelerator fellow and the founder of the advocacy and consulting organization, Films With A Cause. She was the director of the award-winning films From Syria To Hope (2019) and With Love From Munera (2020). She is in development on her first feature film funded by the Hot Docs Cross Currents Fund, a documentary following the journey of one of the first recipients of a Bone Marrow Transplant to be potentially cured of Sickle Cell Disease. Yazmeen currently works at Charles Officer's production company and supports Oscar-nominee Sami Khan's projects while working in different capacities on Toronto based productions. Guest: Yazmeen Kanji (@yazmeenkanji on Instagram) Films with a Cause (https://www.filmswithacause.com/) Hosted by: Amber Dhall (@amber_dhall, @beyond.the.film on Instagram) Jasma Zhou (@jasma_fusion_cuisine on Youtube and Instagram) Contact information: Email - offthechartspodcastt@gmail.com Instagram - @offthecharts_podcast

Saul Williams, Motion and Face2Face host David Peck talk about their new film Akilla's Escape, extended family, lived experience, existence as resistance, racialized capitalism, poetry, art and pushing boundaries and why it may not be a great idea to dabble in hope or cynicism.TrailerFind out more about the film here.Synopsis:Akilla's Escape weaves the present and past in a crime-noir about the urban child-soldier. Set in Toronto and New York where over 450,000 Jamaicans reside, the story speaks to the historical criminalization of black boys that modern society overlooks.Akilla Brown is forty years old and for the first time in his life, the clandestine cannabis grow operation he runs is legit. Only one year into government approvedlegalization, the pendulum of hypocrisy takes a toll and Akilla decides to cash out. While making a routine delivery on a cool, summer night, destiny takes anunexpected turn when Akilla confronts a firestorm of masked youths in an armed robbery.In the aftermath of the heist, Akilla captures one of the thieves, a mute fifteen-year-old boy named Sheppard. Upon learning thebandits are affiliated with the Garrison Army, a Jamaican crime syndicate his grandfather founded. Akilla is forced to reckon with a cycle of violence he thought he escaped.About Saul Williams:Saul Williams came to public attention after the release of the internationally acclaimed film Slam, which he co-wrote and starred in. Slam introduced the world to the Slam poetry movement and won Sundance's Grand Jury Prize and the Cannes Camera D'Or in 1998.Saul holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Drama from Morehouse College and an M.F.A. in acting from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He has performed in over 30 countries with invitations that have spanned from the White House, the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, The Louvre, The Getty Center, Queen Elizabeth Hall, to villages, townships, community centers, and prisons across the world.Saul has published five books of poetry and 7 musical albums. On stage, he was chosen for the lead role in Holler If Ya Hear Me, a Broadway musical featuring music by Tupac Shakur and he has appeared in numerous films and television shows. He is currently working on his directorial debut Neptune Frost.Wendy "Motion" BraithwaiteWendy Motion Brathwaite is a Canadian musician, writer and activist from Toronto, Ontario. She is most noted as cowriter with Charles Officer of the screenplay for the 2020 film Akilla's Escape, for which they won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 9th Canadian Screen Awards in 2021.She also wrote the short films A Man's Story (2016) and Theodore (2020) and has worked as a story editor on the television series Coroner.She has performed as a hip hop artist and spoken word poet under the stage name Motion, and released the CD Motion in Poetry: The Audio Xperience and has also published the poetry collections Motion in Poetry and 40 Dayz, and has written theatrical plays including Oraltorio: A Theatrical Mixtape, 4our Woman, Aneemah's Spot, Loveleigh's Logue, Nightmare Dream and Rebirth of the Afronauts: A Black Space Odyssey.Image Copyright and Credit: Cane Sugar FilmWorks.F2F Music and Image Copyright: David Peck and Face2Face. Used with permission.For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.With thanks to Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Generational violence is a plague on so many communities...On this episode of "In The Seats With..." we get into the meat of an issue that plagues so many communities and marks a real next level of Canadian Filmmaking and StoryTelling.In a crime-noir about the urban child-soldier, Akilla Brown captures a fifteen-year-old Jamaican boy in the aftermath of an armed robbery. Over one gruelling night, Akilla confronts a cycle of generational violence he thought he escaped.We got the distinct pleasure to sit down with the writer/director of 'Akilla's Escape'; Charles Officer about the origins of the story, the making of the film, it's bigger message and so very much more in one of our better conversations of the entire year. Check it out...and find 'Akilla's Escape' on all VOD platforms now.

Author, actor, poet and hip-hop pioneer Saul Williams — who stars in and scores Charles Officer's Akilla's Escape, now available on VOD across North America — takes the mic for Lovers Rock, the second and best feature in Steve McQueen's Small Axe film cycle. Your genial host Norm Wilner thinks you'll enjoy this one.

Canadian comedy titan Seth Rogen discusses his debut book, Yearbook, his famous use of cannabis and why he thinks comedy is undervalued. Director Charles Officer and writer Wendy Motion Brathwaite talk about their film Akilla's Escape, which takes a blunt look at Jamaican gang culture and the reach of its international drug trade. Artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer talks about his poetic and fleeting memorial to the millions of victims of COVID-19, called A Crack in the Hourglass.

This week on the beat, Motion Braithwaite is our guest! We talk about: How her love of poetry helped in her screenwriting journey The major differences between playwriting and screenwriting The plays she reads to study storytelling structure What makes a play becomes a successful film adaptation How to co-write a film successfully And more!   Wendy MOTION Brathwaite motionlive.com | @motionlive Motion is a playwright, screenwriter, poet and emcee, fusing word, sound & drama for the stage and screen. A Canadian Film Centre alumna, she is currently a writer and Executive Story Editor on CBC's hit drama series, Coroner (Back Alley/Muse). She is also developing series with production companies Darius Films and Sphere Media. Motion is the co-writer of Akilla's Escape (Canesugar Films), a feature film with director Charles Officer, to be released in 2020. She is also writer of ReelWorld Award-winning short film A Man's Story (Bravofact), which has screened in film festivals in London, Ghana, Belgium, Zanzibar and Toronto.   Her most recent production for the stage is Oraltorio: A Theatrical Mixtape with DJ L'Oqenz. Premiering to critical acclaim, it has been remounted at Toronto's Soulpepper/Obsidian Theatre, CINARS in Montreal, and the groundbreaking Chale Wote Festival in Ghana. Her other works include Aneemah's Spot (Summerworks), Loveleigh's Logue (50in50/Billie Holiday Theatre, NYC), and the Dora- nominated Nightmare Dream (IFT Theatre/Obsidian). She is also published in Motion in Poetry (Women's Press), Everything Remains Raw (GooseLane), and The Black Notes (Insomniac Press).   Thank you so much for listening to the show! Please remember to SUBSCRIBE, RATE, + REVIEW the show- I would really appreciate it. It helps other screenwriters who are interested in this story to find the show a little easier.   If you are interested in becoming a guest, sponsoring the show, or have any other inquiries, please send an email to hi@thebeatsheet.co!   You can listen to every episode of The Beat Sheet on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Soundcloud, and Stitcher! You can click here to subscribe to the podcast everywhere via this RSS feed!   The official hashtag for the podcast is #beatsheetpod   Please be sure to follow us on social media as well! You can find the show everywhere:   Instagram | @beatsheetpod Twitter | @beatsheetpod Facebook | The Beat Sheet  

TIFF 2020 is upon us, and writer-director Charles Officer — whose gangland drama Akilla’s Escape makes its world premiere at the festival on Saturday, September 12th, and who also narrates The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel — is here to talk about Carlito’s Way, the 1993 thriller that reunited the Scarface team of producer Martin … Continue reading Charles Officer on Carlito’s Way →

Norm is joined by NOW writers Radheyan Simonpillai and Sadaf Ahsan, filmmaker Charles Officer and Black Legal Action Centre vice-chair Sandra Hudson for a conversation about saving Black lives by defunding the police.

Charles Officer and Face2Face host David Peck talk about his new film Invisible Essence, the The Little Prince, the personal and universal, a return to childhood, imagination, mystery, wonder and the contemplation of sunsets. Trailer Synopsis Invisible Essence: The Little Prince explores the global legacy of The Little Prince 75 years after its publication. Weaving the author Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s extraordinary biography with fascinating discussions of key sections of the book, the film explores the ways life and art reflect one another in curious ways. Indeed, the film reveals that St-Ex’s own story – his childhood, his love affair, his friendships, his politics, and his harrowing brushes with death – inform the story at every turn. Working imaginatively with the famous line “what is essential is invisible to the eye”, the film introduces a modern day Little Prince – a seven year-old blind Pakistani-Canadian boy who absorbs the book for the first time – and follows him over the course of a day as he grapples with the meanings of the story he has just read. Throughout, Invisible Essence: The Little Prince captures engaging conversations with an incredible range of individuals such as Mark Osborne (director of the animated film ‘The Little Prince’), Adam Gopnik (Staff Writer at The New Yorker), Rupi Kaur (Poet, New York Times Bestselling Author), Stacy Schiff (Pulitzer-Prize-winning biographer of St-Exupéry), and Olivier and François d'Agay (the great nephew and nephew of Antoine de Saint- Exupéry). Although a fable, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s transcendent story suggests an ethical philosophy about life in its own way, a code of respect for humanity. Biography Charles Officer is the founder and creative director of Canesugar Filmworks. His filmmaking career began with a slate of award-winning short films that premiered at International Film Festivals around the world. He is an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre Director Residency where his debut feature Nurse, Fighter, Boy was produced (TIFF ’08, 10 Genie Nominations 2010). Charles followed with the feature documentary Mighty Jerome (4 Leo Awards in 2011, 2012 Emmy Award for Best Historical Documentary).Officer directed Stone Thrower: The Chuck Ealey Story for the eight-episode documentary series Engraved on a Nation (2014 CSA Best Documentary Series). In 2017 he made The Skin We’re In, featuring journalist and activist Desmond Cole and the feature documentary Unarmed Verses (Hot Docs Best Canadian Feature Awards, Vancouver International Film Festival 2017, TIFF Top Ten People’s Choice Award 2018).Charles has also directed multiple episodes of dramatic series such as Rookie Blue, Private Eyes, Netflix Original 21 Thunder and Ransom. He recently completed his third feature documentary Invisible Essence: The Little Prince based on the international best selling novella. His feature crime noir Akilla’s Escape starring Saul Williams begins production spring 2019, and he is developing the series adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s novel Son of a Smaller Hero with Generic Productions and Prospero Pictures. Image Copyright: Charles Officer & Cane Sugar Filmworks. Used with permission. For more information about David Peck’s podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here. With thanks to Thom Powers form TIFF and producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My Summer Lair Host Sammy Younan interviews Charles Officer the director of Invisible Essence: The Little Prince a documentary on the Little Prince's inspiring and lasting legacy. My Summer Lair Chapter #106: When Was The Last Time You The Little Prince? Recorded: Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 11:30am at Paintbox Bistro

All around us there are signs of a city bursting at the seams. Migration to major urban centres sees this playing out in metropolitan areas all over. Cranes dot the sky line, and everywhere you go there's another billboard promoting a new development, promising a toe hold in a real estate market that's become out of reach to most people. But where those developments are replacing rental housing, what happens to the families that call those places home? This is a special episode that explores the consequences of a city's growth that most of us don't consider carefully enough. Made in partnership with award-winning documentary filmmaker Charles Officer and TV Ontario, we meet some of the young people who called Toronto's The Villaways housing community home. Show Notes Love our work? Please check out our Patreon Campaign! Become a patron of the show for as little as $1 per month

Interviews with flim makers Alanis Obomsawin and Charles Officer, theatre director William B Davis, playwright Scott Button and actor Patrick Dodd.

Steve has long been creating striking images with his cinematography in such films as Flower & Garnet, Seven Times Lucky, and The Dark Hours. Steve worked on iconic Canadian Director Bruce McDonald's film, The Tracey Fragments, pushing the boundaries of cinema, as well as and the award winning debut from Charles Officer, Nurse.Fighter.Boy. Steve's work on the Canadian TV series, Durham County, earned him one of several Gemini nominations in his career. Some of Steve's other credits include the UK-Canada co-production, Snow Cake, re-teaming with Bruce McDonald for the documentary Music from the Big House, and the film Citizen Gangster. Additionally, Steve shot the drama Sitting on the Edge of Marlene, Preggoland and the television series Cardinal. More recently, Steve worked on Born to Be Blue, a re-imagining of jazz legend Chet Baker's musical comeback in the late '60s and Mean Dreams, a coming-of-age fable/thriller which had debuted at the Cannes.  

Charles Officer has been chronicling Black Canadian stories in documentaries like The Skin We're In and Unarmed Verses, which just won the best Canadian Feature Documentary award at Hot Docs. But when he started out, he just wanted to make fiction. And he still can't get those projects funded.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Steve has long been creating striking images with his cinematography in such films as Flower & Garnet, Seven Times Lucky, and The Dark Hours. Steve worked on iconic Canadian Director Bruce McDonald's film, The Tracey Fragments, pushing the boundaries of cinema, as well as and the award winning debut from Charles Officer, Nurse.Fighter.Boy. Steve's work on the Canadian TV series, Durham County, earned him one of several Gemini nominations in his career. Some of Steve's other credits include the UK-Canada co-production, Snow Cake, re-teaming with Bruce McDonald for the documentary Music from the Big House, and the film Citizen Gangster. Steve recently shot the drama Sitting on the Edge of Marlene, Preggoland, and Born to Be Blue, a re-imagining of jazz legend Chet Baker's musical comeback in the late 1960s.   In addition, he worked on the upcoming, Mean Dreams, which debuted at the Cannes.

  Photo credit: Véro Boncompagni   Check out the trailer of their new NFB film Ninth Floor making its world premiere at TIFF 2015.   Synopsis of Film It started quietly when a group of Caribbean students, strangers in a cold new land, began to suspect their professor of racism. It ended in the most explosive student uprising Canada had ever known. Over four decades later, Ninth Floor reopens the file on the Sir George Williams Riot – a watershed moment in Canadian race relations and one of the most contested episodes in the nation’s history. It was the late 60s, change was in the air, and a restless new generation was claiming its place– but nobody at Sir George Williams University would foresee the chaos to come. On February 11, 1969, riot police stormed the occupied floors of the main building, making multiple arrests. As fire consumed the 9th floor computer centre, a torrent of debris rained onto counter-protesters chanting racist slogans – and scores of young lives were thrown into turmoil. Making a sophisticated and audacious foray into meta-documentary, writer and director Mina Shum meets the original protagonists in clandestine locations throughout Trinidad and Montreal, the wintry city where it all went down. And she listens. Can we hope to make peace with such a painful past? What lessons have we learned? What really happened on the 9th floor? In a cinematic gesture of redemption and reckoning, Shum attends as her subjects set the record straight – and lay their burden down. Cinematography by John Price evokes a taut sense of subterfuge and paranoia, while a spacious soundscape by Miguel Nunes and Brent Belke echoes with the lonely sound of the coldest wind in the world.   Mina Shum: Biography Born in Hong Kong and raised in Canada, Mina Shum is an independent filmmaker and artist. “I’m the child of the Praxis Screenwriting Workshop, Cineworks Independent Film Co-op, the Canadian Film Centre and working class immigrant parents,” she says. With Ninth Floor, a production of the National Film Board of Canada, Shum has written and directed her fourth feature film and first feature documentary. Her first feature Double Happiness (1994) – developed while she was resident director at the Canadian Film Centre – premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Citation for Best Canadian Feature Film and the Toronto Metro Media Prize. It went on to win Best First Feature at the Berlin Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Torino Film Festival. Following its American premiere at Sundance, it was released theatrically in the U.S. by Fine Line/New Line Features. It was nominated for multiple Genie Awards, Canada’s top film honour, winning Best Actress for Sandra Oh, and Best Editing for Alison Grace. Shum’s second and third features – Drive, She Said (1997) and Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity (2002) – also premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity was subsequently invited to both Sundance and the Vancouver Film Festival, where it won a Special Citation for Best Screenplay (shared with co-writer Dennis Foon). It was released theatrically in Canada and the U.S. Shum’s short films include Shortchanged; Love In; Hunger; Thirsty; Me, Mom and Mona, which won a Special Jury Citation the 1993 Toronto Film Festival; Picture Perfect, nominated for Best Short Drama at the Yorkton Film Festival; and most recently I Saw Writer’s Guild Award. Her TV work ranges from Mob Princess, a TV movie produced for Brightlight Pictures/W Network, to episodic directing on About A Girl, Noah’s Arc, Exes and Oh’s, Bliss, The Shield Stories and Da Vinci’s Inquest. Shum’s interests extend beyond film and television. Her immersive video installation You Are What You Eat was held over at the Vancouver Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Centre A, and her cinematic theatre piece All, created in collaboration with the Standing Wave Music Ensemble, was presented at the 2011 Push Festival. She has hosted sold-out events for the experimental Pecha Kucha program, and her Internet hit Hip Hop Mom was featured in Calgary’s official Canada Day celebrations. In 2004 she was invited to deliver the inaugural UBC/Laurier Institute Multicultural Lecture, entitled New Day Rising: Journey of a Hyphenated Girl, and in 2011 she was the recipient of the Sondra Kelly Writer’s Guild of Canada Award. She is currently preparing her next feature, Meditation Park.   Selwyn Jacob: Biography Selwyn Jacob was born in Trinidad and came to Canada in 1968 with the dream of becoming a filmmaker. It was a dream that wouldn’t die: he became a teacher and eventually a school principal but eventually chose to leave the security of that career to educate a wider audience through film. He has been a producer with the National Film Board of Canada since 1997. His early work as an independent director includes We Remember Amber Valley, a documentary about the black community that existed near Lac La Biche in Alberta. Prior to joining the NFB, he directed two award-winning NFB releases – Carol’s Mirror, and The Road Taken, which won the Canada Award at the 1998 Gemini Awards. In 1997 he joined the NFB’s Pacific & Yukon Studio in Vancouver, and has gone on to produce close to 50 NFB films. Among his many credits are Crazywater, directed by the Inuvialuit filmmaker Dennis Allen; Hue: A Matter of Colour, a co-production with Sepia Films, directed by Vic Sarin; Mighty Jerome, written and directed by Charles Officer; and the digital interactive project Circa 1948, by Vancouver artist Stan Douglas. Released in 2010, Mighty Jerome addresses issues of race and nationalism while paying tribute to Harry Jerome, one of the most remarkable athletes in Canadian history. The film went on to win multiple honours, including a Leo Award for Best Feature Length Documentary and the 2012 Regional Emmy Award for Best Historical Documentary.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Photo credit: Véro BoncompagniListen in today as these filmmakers, Mina Shum and Selwyn Jacobs, talk about Canada’s hidden history, implicit and explicit racism, why we need to listen to others and why they’re confident we can overcome our fears.Check out the trailer of their new NFB film Ninth Floor making its world premiere at TIFF 2015.Synopsis of FilmIt started quietly when a group of Caribbean students, strangers in a cold new land, began to suspect their professor of racism. It ended in the most explosive student uprising Canada had ever known. Over four decades later, Ninth Floor reopens the file on the Sir George Williams Riot – a watershed moment in Canadian race relations and one of the most contested episodes in the nation’s history.It was the late 60s, change was in the air, and a restless new generation was claiming its place– but nobody at Sir George Williams University would foresee the chaos to come.On February 11, 1969, riot police stormed the occupied floors of the main building, making multiple arrests. As fire consumed the 9th floor computer centre, a torrent of debris rained onto counter-protesters chanting racist slogans – and scores of young lives were thrown into turmoil. Making a sophisticated and audacious foray into meta-documentary, writer and director Mina Shum meets the original protagonists in clandestine locations throughout Trinidad and Montreal, the wintry city where it all went down. And she listens. Can we hope to make peace with such a painful past? What lessons have we learned? What really happened on the 9th floor?In a cinematic gesture of redemption and reckoning, Shum attends as her subjects set the record straight – and lay their burden down. Cinematography by John Price evokes a taut sense of subterfuge and paranoia, while a spacious soundscape by Miguel Nunes and Brent Belke echoes with the lonely sound of the coldest wind in the world.Mina Shum: BiographyBorn in Hong Kong and raised in Canada, Mina Shum is an independent filmmaker and artist. “I’m the child of the Praxis Screenwriting Workshop, Cineworks Independent Film Co-op, the Canadian Film Centre and working class immigrant parents,” she says.With Ninth Floor, a production of the National Film Board of Canada, Shum has written and directed her fourth feature film and first feature documentary.Her first feature Double Happiness (1994) – developed while she was resident director at the Canadian Film Centre – premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Citation for Best Canadian Feature Film and the Toronto Metro Media Prize. It went on to win Best First Feature at the Berlin Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Torino Film Festival. Following its American premiere at Sundance, it was released theatrically in the U.S. by Fine Line/New Line Features. It was nominated for multiple Genie Awards, Canada’s top film honour, winning Best Actress for Sandra Oh, and Best Editing for Alison Grace.Shum’s second and third features – Drive, She Said (1997) and Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity (2002) – also premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity was subsequently invited to both Sundance and the Vancouver Film Festival, where it won a Special Citation for Best Screenplay (shared with co-writer Dennis Foon). It was released theatrically in Canada and the U.S.Shum’s short films include Shortchanged; Love In; Hunger; Thirsty; Me, Mom and Mona, which won a Special Jury Citation the 1993 Toronto Film Festival; Picture Perfect, nominated for Best Short Drama at the Yorkton Film Festival; and most recently I Saw Writer’s Guild Award.Her TV work ranges from Mob Princess, a TV movie produced for Brightlight Pictures/W Network, to episodic directing on About A Girl, Noah’s Arc, Exes and Oh’s, Bliss, The Shield Stories and Da Vinci’s Inquest.Shum’s interests extend beyond film and television. Her immersive video installation You Are What You Eat was held over at the Vancouver Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Centre A, and her cinematic theatre piece All, created in collaboration with the Standing Wave Music Ensemble, was presented at the 2011 Push Festival. She has hosted sold-out events for the experimental Pecha Kucha program, and her Internet hit Hip Hop Mom was featured in Calgary’s official Canada Day celebrations.In 2004 she was invited to deliver the inaugural UBC/Laurier Institute Multicultural Lecture, entitled New Day Rising: Journey of a Hyphenated Girl, and in 2011 she was the recipient of the Sondra Kelly Writer’s Guild of Canada Award.She is currently preparing her next feature, Meditation Park.Selwyn Jacob: BiographySelwyn Jacob was born in Trinidad and came to Canada in 1968 with the dream of becoming a filmmaker. It was a dream that wouldn’t die: he became a teacher and eventually a school principal but eventually chose to leave the security of that career to educate a wider audience through film. He has been a producer with the National Film Board of Canada since 1997.His early work as an independent director includes We Remember Amber Valley, a documentary about the black community that existed near Lac La Biche in Alberta. Prior to joining the NFB, he directed two award-winning NFB releases – Carol’s Mirror, and The Road Taken, which won the Canada Award at the 1998 Gemini Awards.In 1997 he joined the NFB’s Pacific & Yukon Studio in Vancouver, and has gone on to produce close to 50 NFB films. Among his many credits are Crazywater, directed by the Inuvialuit filmmaker Dennis Allen; Hue: A Matter of Colour, a co-production with Sepia Films, directed by Vic Sarin; Mighty Jerome, written and directed by Charles Officer; and the digital interactive project Circa 1948, by Vancouver artist Stan Douglas.Released in 2010, Mighty Jerome addresses issues of race and nationalism while paying tribute to Harry Jerome, one of the most remarkable athletes in Canadian history. The film went on to win multiple honours, including a Leo Award for Best Feature Length Documentary and the 2012 Regional Emmy Award for Best Historical Documentary. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Charles Officer director of the Genie Nominated Nurse Fighter Boy will be joining us Note: Charles Officer could not join us on this episode

Charles Officer director of the Genie Nominated Nurse Fighter Boy will be joining us Note: Charles Officer could not join us on this episode