Monday 26 August 2019

Press Conference about social inclusion for Black Canadians. Tuesday 2pm Bathurst south of Bloor

Parliamentary Secretary Vaughan will make an announcement in the Different Book List Tuesday at 2pm on supporting diversity across Canada
MEDIA ADVISORY
Adam Vaughan, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and Member of Parliament for Spadina–Fort York, will make an announcement about how the Government of Canada is advancing diversity and taking positive action to ensure social inclusion for Black Canadians.
The announcement is being made on behalf of the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development.
A photo opportunity and media availability will follow the announcement.
Please note that all details are subject to change. All times are local.
DATE: Tuesday, August 27, 2019
TIME: 2:00 p.m.
PLACE A Different Booklist
779 Bathurst Street
Toronto, Ontario
Contacts
FOR INFORMATION (media only):
Valérie Glazer
Press Secretary
Office of the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, P.C., M.P
Minister of Families, Children and Social Development
819-654-5546
Media Relations Office
Employment and Social Development Canada
819-994-5559
media@hrsdc-rhdcc.gc.ca
"Issued on behalf of A Different Booklist by Stephen Weir stephen@stephenweir.com 416-801-3101"

Thursday 22 August 2019

Rattlesnakes will open Caribbean Tales Film Festival - this afternoon's Caribbean Camera this morning:


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Grab your popcorn. CTFF About to Open. Annual Filmfest has Snakes on the Brain for Gala Night

By Stephen Weir


When the Caribbean Tales Film Festival (CTFF) opens in a couple weeks, the first film of the annual flickfest will have the audience thinking they have snakes on the brain when the theatre lights come back on.  Rattlesnakes is a full- length feature that has rattlers not just in the personalities of the principal actors but literally on camera too. 
The Canadian debut takes place September 4th, right on College Street in Toronto’s Little Italy.  The film will be feted at the festival’s early evening 2019 kick-off and street party, followed by an 8pm VIP filled screening across the street at the Royal Cinema!
This is probably going to be the first movie an audience will ever see where they will see the names of three snakes in the final credits! Slash and Strike don’t get much screen time or any lines to speak, but they do rattle audiences when the hiss and shake their tails at a key point in the flick. The third snake, Delilah was a snake stand-in, whose best scenes were probably shed by the movie’s editor!
The film is adapted from a stage play penned by red-hot UK author and playwright Graham Ronald Farrow. Julius Amedume, the film’s Ghanaian-British director worked with Farrow to come up with a tight 85-minute story.  Rattlesnakes received its World Premier at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles earlier this year and snapped up the Audience Award for Best Movie.
“ The movie is at one level close to the original British play,” Haitian-French-American actor and producer Jimmy Jean-Louis told the Caribbean Camera. “I am not white; in the movie I am kidnapped by three business men who are.  In the original play everyone is white and the kidnappers are regulars Joes, one is a plumber. We have changed that and it makes a significant difference (in the nuance of the story)”

Pictured Right: Jimmy Jean-Louis and Christian Oliver


It is being called a neo-noir thriller, where nothing, except the rattlesnake, is exactly what it seems. Jean-Louis plays a New Age guru, or, is he a sex therapist bedding the unhappy wives of the kidnappers in a swank Santa Barbara retreat?
Fast paced, the film opens with the three cuckolded husbands digging a grave for the therapist. They are enraged after a private eye shows them damning pictures of what sort of therapy Jean-Louis delivers to their unhappy wives (which they are paying for). They have agreed amongst themselves to break into the California love nest and teach the guru a lesson he probably isn’t going to survive!
The therapist is bound and beaten with a knuckle-breaking hammer. And, before the torture ends, the kidnappers rip open his fly to see if their wives might have been attracted to him because of the size of his penis!
“We never mention colour,” continues Jean-Louis. “ It’s the unspoken word in the room, but it is an issues which the movie really hangs on. IT really divides how audiences interpret Rattlesnakes.” According to the movie’s director and star, husbands and wives can have many different interpretations on what is all really about and who exactly the real bad people are in the film.
Even though his hands and feed are tied the therapist does gets his licks in telling each of the kidnappers how flawed their marriages really are and how they are to blame.  It is a masterful performance by a Caribbean actor who hasn’t had much exposure in Canada.
The once homeless actor is best known for his role as "the Haitian" on the NBC television series Heroes and now has a starring role on the television show Claws.

Pictured left: Jimmy Jean-Louis and Kathleen McCellan


“I have worked on films in three Canadian cities: Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. I do know the country’s big cities,” said Jean-Louis. “This time though I will get a good chance to explore Toronto. I will be up with you for 8-days around the Festival.”
“Love the idea of the CTFF,” he continued. “I am going to take part in their Incubator programme.  I want to pitch my next movie, it is also written by Julius Amedume.  It is a feature length Psychological Horror Thriller, that will be shot in my country of origin, Haiti.”
The film is called Mother Water and is fictional film, based on the African Caribbean folk tale/ mythology of what some of you might know as Mami Wata,” he said. “ Mami Wata is a half-human, half-fish like deity, that comes from the sea to dwell on land in human form, often to detrimental effect, depending on who she interacts with or what she wants.”





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Friday 16 August 2019

Sunday afternoon talk by famous Haida artist / graphic novelist Yahgulanaas

For Immediate Release: Rare Ontario Appearance at PAMA by Artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas
  Brampton, ON (August 16, 2019) Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives (PAMA) is pleased to welcome award-winning, British Columbia-based artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas on Sunday, August 18 from 2 – 3 p.m.to discuss his epic graphic work, RED: A Haida Manga, currently on display in the exhibition For A Social Cause.  This talk is included in the price of general admission. Pre-registration is required.
Image credit: Farah Nosh



About the Artist
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is an award-winning visual contemporary artist, author and professional speaker. His work has been seen in public spaces, museums, galleries and private collections across the globe. Institutional collections include the British Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum and Vancouver Art Gallery. His large sculptural works are part of the public art collection of the Vancouver International Airport, City of Vancouver, City of Kamloops and University of British Columbia. Yahgulanaas's publications include national bestsellers Flight of the Hummingbirdhttp://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=mny0c-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1553653726 and RED, a Haida Mangahttp://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=mny0c-20&l=as2&o=1&a=155365353X. When not writing or producing art, Yahgulanaas pulls from his 20 years of political experience in the Council of the Haida Nation and travels the world speaking to businesses, institutions and communities about social justice, community building, communication and change management. His most recent talks include the American Museum of Natural History and TEDxVancouver.

Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Canadian b. 1954, RED, 2008, Watercolour, ink on paper, 168 cm x 381 cm, Private collection of Michael and Inna O'Brian. © Michael Nicholl Yahgulanaas, 2019. Brm
His work RED: A Haida Manga on view now at PAMA was first manifested in 2008 as a large-scale, six-tiered band of 18 panels each, across a nearly three-and-a-half-meter-long composite of hand-painted watercolour and ink drawings. The drawings were reproduced in a scripted graphic novel of the same name in 2009.
The work follows the life of an orphaned young boy named Red and his sister Jaada who live in the peaceful village of Kiokaathli on a secluded island in the Pacific Ocean off the West Coast of British Columbia. Their idyllic existence is cut short when a band of raiders attack the village, abduct Jaada and successfully escape without a trace.  Separated from his sister, Red grows up alone to become a leader of his community all the while consumed by rage and vengeance. When he unexpectedly stumbles upon the chance of rescuing Jaada, he will do anything and stop at nothing to bring her back home without thinking about the recourse of his action. In the process Red kills an innocent man and eventually ends his own life.
This action-packed tragedy combines traditional Pacific Northwest Coast Haida imagery and oral narrative with Manga (popular contemporary graphics found in Japanese comics and cartooning) to create a unique hybrid style that has come to define the work of its artist-author.  Yahgulanaas’ distinct brand is an integrated culmination of his studies of the artistic methods of his ancestors and Asian influences including the teaching he received from Chinese brush painter Cai Ben Kwon.  Learn more about this dynamic work on view now at PAMA. 

Issued by Stephen Weir - stephen@stephenweir.com 416-489-5868
on behalf of PAMA

Thursday 8 August 2019

Emancipation Day Proclaimation Demanded by Freedom Train Conductor

Look Down The Track Senators – Wanda’s Emancipation Train Is Heading For Ottawa.
By Stephen Weir

Wanda Thomas Bernard at the mike Union Station
Stand back  honourable members of the Senate. The Emancipation Train is heading to Ottawa and Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard is going to blow her conductor’s whistle until Canada’s Upper House listens to the voices of the Caribbean and African American communities.
Dr. Bernard championed a bill proclaiming August 1st Emancipation Day in Canada. Even though the legislation was passed by the Liberal Government and made it through two readings in the Senate, it failed to come up for the final vote before the Senate recessed.  The bill will not be brought back for a third and final reading.
At last Wednesday’s Freedom Train Ride in Toronto, the Nova Scotia senator said she is not going to give up.  Speaking to a crowd of close to 1,000 people inside TTC ‘s Union Station she told them  “I am 66 years old and I don’t have to retire (from the Senate) until I am 75. We will not give up anytime soon!”

 At Right: Libations - Aina-Nia Ayo'dele
For the seventh year in a row there was a special midnight subway train that took hundreds of people from Union Station to the Sheppard West Station. The symbolic special train left the station on July 31st and arrived at Sheppard just after midnight to celebrate the August 1st Emancipation Day.
“This year waour seventh annual Freedom Train ride,” said organizer Itah Sadu.  “ It was an incredible journey and experience! This was second year that the Honourable Wanda Thomas Bernard, has joined us, but this was her first time as our honourary conductor. She had the whistle and gave the call to board the train.”
Train Arrives at Sheppard

Also taking part in the Freedom Train ceremonies  were poet George Elliott Clarke, City Councillor Michael Thompson and community organizer Adisa S. Oji. Councillor Thompson brought greetings and a plaque on behalf of the city and Mr. Oji was presented with the Community Resilience Award. 
Last week’s train ride marked two important things.  The Underground Railroad which brought former slaves to Canada in the 19th century and the 185th anniversary of Emancipation Day on August 1, when the British Empire abolished slavery in 1834.  
The Senator hopes that she will be back next August 1st with an official Federal Government signed Emancipation Day proclamation!