Cinema in the Midst of Struggle will host their first winter screening on December 11 at 7PM. This virtual event will feature two shorts followed by a Q&A with Delvina Bernard (St. Mary's University), narrator of Remember Africville and founder of the Africentric Learning Institute of Nova Scotia. The films will be introduced and screened on YouTube followed by a Q&A on zoom. Registration is required to access these links.
//Friday, December 11 @ 7 PM EST
//Event is free
//Register at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cinema-in-the-midst-of-struggle-screening-qa-with-delvina-bernard-tickets-130444546149
Remember Africville (dir. Shelagh Mackenzie, 1991, 35 mins): Africville, a small black settlement, lay within the city limits of Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the 1960s, the families who lived there were uprooted and their homes demolished in the name of urban renewal and integration. Now, more than twenty years later, the site of the community of Africville is a stark, under-utilized park. Former residents, their descendants and some of the decision-makers, speak out and, with the help of archival photographs and films, tell the story of that painful relocation. (NFB)
Incident at Restigouche (dir. Alanis Obomsawin, 1984, 46 mins): On June 11 and 20, 1981, the Quebec Provincial Police (QPP) raided Restigouche Reserve, Quebec. At issue were the salmon-fishing rights of the Mi’kmaq. Because salmon has traditionally been a source of food and income for the Mi’kmaq, the Quebec government’s decision to restrict fishing aroused consternation and anger. Released in 1984, this groundbreaking and impassioned account of the police raids brought Alanis Obomsawin to international attention. The film features a remarkable on-camera exchange between Obomsawin herself and provincial Minister of Fisheries Lucien Lessard, the man who’d ordered the raid. (NFB)
Delvina Bernard is a 6th generation African Nova Scotian. She co-founded and led the nationally acclaimed female acapella quartet Four the Moment for 20 years – and received numerous awards for her social justice song compositions. As a principle founder of the Africentric Learning Institute of Nova Scotia (ALI), she has been at the forefront of the Canadian Afrocentric education movement and is most noted for establishing Canada’s first ever university degree in Afrocentric Educational Leadership at Mount Saint Vincent University. As an Afrocentrist, feminist, singer, songwriter and public intellectual, Delvina has had a significant impact on African Canadian identity discourse over the past three decades. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in the Department of International Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University. The working title of her thesis is: Caribbean Reparations for Enslavement - An Economic Development Strategy and Alternative to Aid.