Every February, people across Canada participate in Black History Month to honour the legacy of Black Canadians and their communities. To celebrate the many achievements of Black Canadian filmmakers this Black History Month, we’ve put together this list of productions made by DGC Ontario Members.
In December 2023, Canadian cinema lost a bright light: DGC Ontario Director Charles Officer. To honour his passing and celebrate the important work Charles did to celebrate the Black experience in Canada and highlight issues of institutional racism, here are several productions directed by Charles Officer you can stream now.
The Porter: CBC Gem
This jazz era-set CBC/BET series showcases how railway workers from both Canada and the United States joined together to give birth to the world’s first Black union. The Porter itself has made history as Canada’s biggest Black-led television production and Canada’s first all-Black writer’s room.
Read our interviews with two creative minds behind The Porter and how they brought Black Canadian history to life: Directors R.T. Thorne and the late Charles Officer.
Click here for a list of DGC Members who worked on The Porter.
Akillah’s Escape: Hooplah
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.
Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Akilla’s Escape.
The Skin We’re In: CBC Gem
Urgent, controversial, and undeniably honest, The Skin We’re In is a wake-up call to complacent Canadians. Racism is here. It is everywhere. It is us, and we are it. Following celebrated journalist Desmond Cole as he researches his hotly anticipated book, this documentary from Director Charles Officer pulls back the curtain on racism in Canada.
This feature documentary presents a thoughtful and vivid portrait of a community facing imposed relocation. At the centre of the story is a remarkably astute and luminous 12-year-old Black girl whose poignant observations about life, the soul, and the power of art give voice to those rarely heard in society.
Nurse.Fighter.Boy.: Hooplah
Charles Officer made his acclaimed feature directorial debut at TIFF 2008 with this poetic tale of a 12-year-old boy who immerses himself in a world of magic in order to help his ailing mother. Jude (Karen LeBlanc) is a hospital night-shift nurse who is herself ill with sickle-cell anemia. On the job, she meets Silence (Clark Johnson), a boxer in need of stitches. Determined to bring this solitary, brooding figure into their lives as a protector, Jude’s son Ciel (Daniel J. Gordon) casts a spell that leads to a series of magical encounters between nurse and fighter — and provides a father figure for himself.
Mighty Jerome: NFB
The story of the rise, fall and redemption of Harry Jerome, Canada’s most record-setting track and field star. Gorgeous monochrome imagery, impassioned interviews and astonishing archival footage are used to tell the triumphant and compelling story of what Harry Jerome’s own coach called “the greatest comeback in track and field history.”
Don’t miss these other fantastic films and shows about the Black experience, made right here in Ontario by DGC Ontario Members:
Brother: Crave
DGC Ontario Director Clement Virgo’s adaptation of David Chariandy’s novel, the story of two Jamaican Canadian brothers whose dreams are dashed by violent reality in 1990s Scarborough. The sons of Caribbean immigrants, Francis and Michael, face questions of masculinity, identity and family amid the pulsing beat of Toronto’s early hip-hop scene. The film was named to TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten list for 2022 and was also nominated for two 2023 NAACP Image Awards: Outstanding Independent Motion Picture and Outstanding International Motion Picture.
Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Brother.
Black Life: Untold Stories: CBC Gem
Black Life: Untold Stories is an eight-part documentary series that reframes the rich and complex histories of Black experiences in Canada. This new CBC documentary series uses contemporary interviews and archival footage to chronicle Canada’s long history of anti-Black racism, including episodes on police brutality and the rise of hip-hop music. DGC Ontario Directors Thyrone Tommy, Alicia K. Harris, and Karen Chapman all directed episodes.
Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Black Life: Untold Stories.
Bria Mack Gets A Life: Crave
Bria Mack Gets A Life is a self-assured comedy series from DGC Ontario Director Sasha Leigh Henry. Malaika Hennie-Hamadi stars as Bria “Mack” McFarlane, a young Black Canadian woman who has recently graduated from university and is navigating the challenges of establishing her adult life with the help of Black Attack (Hannan Younis), her invisible hype girl. Director Kelly Fyffe-Marshall discusses bringing Bria Mack to life in our September 2023 podcast episode.
Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Bria Mack Gets A Life.
SWAY: Coming Soon
A Black community leader sees his life spiral out of control within hours after his brother goes missing, he’s blackmailed by a strange woman, and a murder tests how far he will go to protect the ones he loves. SWAY will have its world premiere at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles on February 8 and its Canadian premiere at the Toronto Black Film Festival on February 17. The film also won Best Film and Best Actor at the inaugural Canadian Black Screen Awards.
Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on SWAY.
Black Community MixTapes: CityTV
Following two young Black filmmakers as they seek to rediscover significant Black social movements in Canada, Black Community MixTapes looks to give people’s personal archives a new life on the internet, all the while bringing to light life-changing moments that ignited Canadian Black History. Directed by DGC Ontario Members Ngardy Conteh George and Alison Duke.
Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Black Community MixTapes.
The Changeling: AppleTV+
When bookseller Apollo (LaKeith Stanfield) meets Emma (Clark Backo), their love story is a fairy tale – until Emma mysteriously vanishes after the birth of their son. Bereft, Apollo finds himself on a death-defying odyssey through a New York City he didn’t know existed. This AppleTV+ miniseries is based on the fantasy horror novel by Victor LaValle.
Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on The Changeling.
Shelved: Crave
Created by DGC Ontario’s Anthony Q. Farrell, Shelved is a workplace comedy that follows the employees and patrons of the fictional Metropolitan Public Library’s Jameson Branch, in the working-class neighbourhood Parkdale, Toronto. Check out our February 2023 interview with Anthony Q. Farrell about unexpected career lessons, why he chose to set his new workplace comedy in a Parkdale library, and why a successful Showrunner needs to be willing to solve “a bag of problems.”
Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Shelved.
Ginny & Georgia: Netflix
One of Netflix’s most watched shows in both 2023 and 2021, this dramedy series follows 30-year-old free-spirited mother Georgia Miller and her 15-year-old biracial daughter Ginny as they move to a fictional affluent town called Wellsbury, Massachusetts for a fresh start after Georgia’s husband dies…but fresh starts are not as simple as they seem. Episodes of this hit series were directed by DGC Ontario Members Sudz Sutherland, Sharon Lewis, James Genn and more.
Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Season 2 of Ginny & Georgia.
Patty vs. Patty: CBC Gem
This award-winning short film directed by DGC Ontario Director Chris Strikes chronicles the story of Toronto’s bizarre 1985 “patty wars,” when Jamaican-Canadian bakers went head-to-head with the federal government over the name of their beloved beef patty.
Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Patty vs. Patty.
