Black filmmakers screened their films at The Creative School’s first-ever Black Film Festival
Explosive. Revolutionary. Limitless. These were some of the words used to describe the genre’s future by the nine filmmakers whose works were screened at In Relation: Black Experimental Film Festival on May 11, 2023.
In Relation aims to provide a safe space to make discoveries and test or demonstrate truths about being Black through the medium of film. Courtesy of Freida Wang, Artspace Gallery
In Relation was hosted by The Creative School’s Artspace Gallery (external link, opens in new window) under the School of Image Arts (IMA) at the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, with financial assistance from Student Life and Learning Support’s Student Initiatives Fund. Nala Haileselassie is the Artspace staff member and IMA student who curated the festival.
Nala Haileselassie is an IMA Film student and the curator of In Relation. Courtesy of Freida Wang, Artspace Gallery
Haileselassie said In Relation was conceptualized in September 2022 after she found herself wanting to create more opportunities for Black experimental film in both academic spaces and the film industry.
“I am a Black experimental filmmaker and I found it really hard to find places in the city that celebrated work like mine,” said Haileselassie.
In addition to applying for funding, sourcing films and organizing the event, Haileselassie designed In Relation’s program flyer, which listed Hitchcock Gold by Sesiny Samuel as the first film to be screened at the festival.
Samuel graduated from the Film program last June with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She said she created Hitchcock Gold for a course assignment with no intentions of submitting it elsewhere, until she became aware of and felt called to In Relation.
“There's something to celebrate about not restricting myself. Film is supposed to be very liberating,” said Samuel during the live panel which occurred after the screening.
The film screenings were accompanied by a panel discussion. Courtesy of Freida Wang, Artspace Gallery
The panel also included In Relation’s filmmakers Ayo Tsalithaba, Raoul Olou, Milen Melles, Amber Bishop, Tamara Jones, Julia Mallory and Shimby Selam. It was moderated by arts curator and critic Sarah-Tai Black with insight from filmmaker Kourtney Jackson. Among the themes Black highlighted for the discussion were grief, memory, yearning and systematic erasure.
In Relation is the first-ever Black Experimental Film Festival and was hosted by The Creative School’s Artspace Callery. Courtesy of Freida Wang, Artspace Gallery
Oakwood Village: A Map is not a Home by artist Raoul Olou is a screen-recorded exploration of the neighborhood via Google Maps’ street view feature, cut to the sound of locals sharing their memories in the area.
“You have places where people have very strong emotional moments,” said Olou. “Suddenly, these places are completely torn down, and you can't access them anymore.”
Olou’s film makes a point to show Oakwood Village at different stages in time as it is one of several neighborhoods heavily affected by the Eglinton Line 5 Crosstown LRT’s unfinished construction.
“I think our responsibility as artists is to bring the [forgotten] past to the present,” Olou said. “The way to cheat people is to reassure them with a future that never arrives.”
The broken promises of former Toronto Mayor John Tory are emphasized in the film THIS IS A CRISIS by Tamara Jones. Jones graduated from TMU with a Bachelors of Arts and Contemporary Studies in 2017.
In THIS IS A CRISIS, Jones bends their body, dressed in only a pencil skirt and blazer, on and around Toronto’s anti-homeless architecture. They shot the scenes alone in the winter with a tripod, then edited the footage to audio clips of Tory’s victory campaign speeches. They said they were personally connected to the locations at which they chose to shoot.
“The film is a way to express my grief,” said Jones, during the panel. “It’s about acknowledging the way that those spaces were irreparably damaged by the policies of our city counsellors. [Despite this], people are still finding ways to use them.”
Living as a Black person in society is often experimental in itself. In Relation provided a safe space to make discoveries and test or demonstrate truths about being Black through the medium of film.
Haileselassie said that in the future, she hopes to gain external funding to extend the festival beyond the university with the goal of reaching a wider community of Black folks who make and enjoy experimental film. 
The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University
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