Film Group Sep 30, 2021

Thursday, September 30, 2021

Series Thirteen – Systemic Racism

The films can be screened via the streaming sites listed with each film

Zoom discussions of each film will take place on: Thursdays: Sept 30, Oct 28 and Nov 25 at 4pm

Hosted by John LeBlanc

Series Thirteen: As a result of the US Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, the reality of racism in North America could no longer be ignored, but early attempts to come to terms with racism, such as in the 60s and 70s Sidney Poitier films, narrowly defined it as the product of deranged individuals.  The recent Black Lives Matter protests, locating racism within society’s structures and institutions, such as the police, have forced us to confront the racism in the very nature of our cultures and national identity.  These three films invite us to examine how the very founding of our nations and their ongoing development is grounded in racism, requiring a major self-confrontation and transformation in order to move beyond the paralysis that racism fosters.  I Am Not Your Negro has the victims of racism explain its nature.  Double Happiness and Beans provide a Canadian context (Asian-Canadian and Indigenous-Canadian, respectively) for the damaging impact of racism.     

Sep 30 – I Am Not Your Negro (2016) – directed by Raoul Peck takes us into the psyche of a victim of racism, here the African-American writer James Baldwin.  In developing the film, the director was given access to a previously unknown 30 pages of notes Baldwin had developed for an unrealized book on the intersecting lives of Martin Luther King Jr, Medgar Evers and Malcolm X.  May be streamed through the UBC Library Catalogue or the Vancouver Public Library Kanopy streaming sites.  Suggested additional viewing: Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask – directed by Isaac Julien and Mark Nash and Ninth Floor directed by Mina Shum.  Both can be streamed through the UBC Library Catalogue.

Oct 28 – Double Happiness (1993) – directed by Mina Shum, on the surface seems to be a simple family situation comedy but is, in fact, a sophisticated analysis of systemic forces that perpetuate racism against Asians in Canada.  Focusing on a Chinese-Canadian family living in Vancouver and, in particular, on an aspiring actress (played by Sandra Oh), the film reveals the bind in which Asian Canadians often find themselves: both too Asian and not Asian enough.  In particular, the film explores how the media perpetuates this bind while claiming to be Asian-positive.   May be streamed through the UBC Library Catalogue streaming site.  Suggested additional viewing: The Joy Luck Club directed by Wayne Wang.  May be streamed through the UBC Library Catalogue.

Nov 25 – Beans (2021) – directed by Tracey Deer fictionalizes the director’s personal experience as a 12 year old during the 1990 Kanehsatake / Kahnawake crisis, a defining moment in Canada’s relationship with its Indigenous peoples.  This crisis, developing out of the ongoing appropriation of Indigenous land in the Montreal / St Lawrence River region and resulting blockade revealed the racist nature at the heart of the Canadian settler project and its governing institutions.  Deer’s return to this pivotal moment assists us in dealing with Canada’s past and moving forward into a more inclusive Canadian future.  This film is playing at VanCity Theatre Sept 10-16: info at viff.org.  Streaming options TBA.  Suggested additional viewing: Alanis Obomsawin’s four documentary films dealing with the crisis: 1)Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, 2)Rocks at Whiskey Trench, 3)My Name is Kahentiiosta, and 4)Spudwrench: Kahnawake Man.  All four can be streamed through the UBC Library Catalogue.  

To join the group, please email john.leblanc @ ubc.ca

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