REEL CANADA Blog : Tags : Prom Night In Mississippi

Seycove Secondary School students

With popcorn churning, box office humming and couches front and centre in classrooms-transformed-into-theatres, the Grade 11s and 12s at Seycove Senior welcomed REEL CANADA into the heart of Deep Cove in North Vancouver, BC, for their first film festival!

Students had opportunities to meet a variety of guests. They heard behind-the-scenes collaborations to movie-making, were privy to personal journeys into the craft of acting, screenwriting and producing/directing and were encouraged to unpack the issues and stories told through a diverse programme of Canadian films of different genres, lengths and themes with the help of guests, REEL CANADA facilitators and their teachers.

NOT ANOTHER DAMN MUSICAL actor, Frank Zotter

Guests included Frank Zotter, actor and star of NOT ANOTHER DAMN MUSICAL, a short film made during the Crazy8s filmmaking competition in Vancouver. Despite its strong festival life, this was Frank's first time screening the film with an audience! Robert Chomiak, co-writer of FIDO, attended and spoke to a packed room about his experiences developing, making and following the distribution of FIDO. And via Skype, Paul Saltzman connected to attentive students following the screening of PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI, full of anecdotes on the making of a documentary and on the art of capturing sensitive subject matter.

PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI filmmaker, Paul Saltzman

The principal, David Overgaard, spoke to us about how this festival props up his school’s themes for 2013: community and experiential learning. He was clearly thrilled at the event’s production value and joined the audiences at a number of the screenings throughout the day. Lead teacher Sean Clancy was impeccable to work with, taking care of so very many details to make this day run as smoothly as possible. Kerry Henderson, the Seycove teacher facilitator, jumped in to provide set-up and discussion points on THE TROTSKY and C.R.A.Z.Y. Her students were overheard in deep discussion into the lunch hour about the films, and the issues they raised.

For REEL CANADA, it was a chance to continue our gradual infiltration of the entire Lower Mainland, another notch on our belt of “RC/BC” communities.

Above: RC's Winnipeg representative Terri Cherniack (left) and executive director Jack Blum (right) flank guest filmmaker and Eco-warrior Emily Hunter.

After something of a “soft opening” last week in Stonewall, we blew into Manitoba with a more robust event at River East Collegiate:  six films, six hundred kids.  Organized almost entirely by a couple of great teachers, Pat Chellack and Anita Kumar, the films were chosen along certain thematic lines – social justice, sustainability, global poverty.

This was because River East is a “UNESCO School”, which is something I didn’t know existed until I went there.  Apparently there are some 9,000 UNESCO schools in 180 countries around the world, from primary to high school, vocational and teachers colleges.  They are all especially dedicated to promoting peace, democracy, human rights, sustainable development, and intercultural learning.

 Anita Kumar and Pat Chellack

Anita Kumar is relatively new at River East, but she’s been a UNESCO teacher from day one, at the middle school that preceded this posting and as an organizer of conferences and other extra-curricular projects.  She was eager to have REEL CANADA return to Winnipeg for a special conference that is happening there next December, involving teachers and students from across Canada, Israel and Germany.  (Really.)

River East partners with Free the Children and Habitat for Humanity, and, to name just one of its many initiatives, its students have raised $14,000 to build a school in Sierra Leone.

It was great to plug Canadian film into the mix. 

Social-issue docs like SHARKWATER, THE CORPORATION, SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL, and PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI made for great jumping-off points for discussions of sustainability, capitalism, genocide and racism.  Eco-warrior and REEL CANADA superstar Emily Hunter came in person to get the kids fired up about what they themselves could do to change the world for the better.  And Peter Raymont joined us via Skype to talk about the challenges of accompanying General Romeo Dallaire on his return to Rwanda ten years after the genocide shocked the world.

Equally exciting was to witness the creativity of these teachers as they got their students looking beneath the surface of films like THE ROCKET and MAMBO ITALIANO to explore the themes of social justice around which each of those films revolve.  For THE ROCKET they were helped by the Skype appearance of Dan Diamond, Canada’s foremost hockey authority, who speaks with such insight into the meaning of the Richard Riots of the 50’s.

All in all it was a perfect blend of film fun and serious purpose and we were pleased to support River East in its association with UNESCO.

 Guest filmmaker and Eco-warrior Emily Hunter.

One of the interesting ways in which REEL CANADA introduces itself to a school board is by offering a board-wide event to which every school in a community can come, on a field trip. Usually these are held at theatres – and most frequently theatres provided by our Premiere Corporate Sponsor, Cineplex Entertainment.

In the Peel District, we’ve been putting on “Cineplex Days”, as we call them, for three years. In 2010, the inaugural Peel Cineplex day drew hundreds of high school students to the SilverCity in Mississauga. Last year, an equally large number of middle school kids attended a similar event. This year, we’re back to the high school group, this time at the SilverCity in Brampton (giving another community in the Peel District a chance to host).

Nadia Litz, a longtime supporter of our program, came out as a guest for the short film EVELYN: THE CUTEST EVIL DEAD GIRL, and Nadia was surprised when students mobbed her for her autograph. Nadia’s officially the latest inductee in the REEL CANADA heartthrobs hall of fame!

Nadia wasn’t the only short film guest that wowed the group from Peel. Comedians Adam and Dave, regulars on the “REEL CANADA circuit”, showed some of the short films from their Unreel Sports Series and took questions from a very excited crowd. REEL CANADA veterans Emily Hunter and Dan Diamond rounded out the day, talking to students about SHARKWATER and THE ROCKET, respectively. Both Emily and Dan have shown real dedication to the REEL CANADA cause this year, coming out to an incredible number of events in person and via Skype.

Because of a generous sponsorship from Pizza Pizza, we were able to provide a free pizza lunch to all participating students – something which they definitely appreciated (some came back not just for seconds, but even thirds). There’s no happier sight than a bunch of smiling, well fed kids, and the afternoon screenings were packed and animated. Students had lots of questions for PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI producer Patricia Aquino, who said afterwards that it was one of the most engaged groups she’s ever spoken with, in dozens of screenings of the film to thousands of students.

On April 18th we did it all again at the Cineplex Sheppard Grande for a group of nearly 1,000 students from the Toronto District School Board. This event kicked off the Ontario portion of our National Tour.

On Tuesday April 17th, REEL CANADA makes a splash in Winnipeg with a three-venue, six-film event for over 400 students at River East Collegiate. The school is managing the tech and logistics for this event, while REEL CANADA brings in the films, the talent, and the awesome discussions about Canadian culture and identity, of course. We're thrilled to be working with Pat Chelack, the teacher at River East who first contacted us not long ago with big dreams of a festival event before the end of the school year. 

In the morning at River East we'll be screening THE CORPORATION (with a Q&A via Skype with Kat Dodds, producer of the multi-media web project for the blockbuster documentary), THE ROCKET (with a Q&A via Skype with NHL Publisher and hockey-whiz Dan Diamond) and SHARKWATER (with eco-warrior, filmmaker, and REEL CANADA superstar Emily Hunter in attendance, live). 

In the afternoon, students will be watching the documentary SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL (with a Skype Q&A with director Peter Raymont) as well as the films PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI and MAMBO ITALIANO.

River East collegiate is a UNESCO Associated School, which means that they're dedicated to supporting international understanding, peace, intercultural dialogue, sustainable development, and quality education. The school contacted REEL CANADA in the hopes of putting together a festival on social justice and environmental issues to complement and support the work they're already doing in those areas. The doc-heavy programme of thought provoking films will spark some engaging dialogue and hopefully inspire some bright young Winnipeggers to change the world! 

Our third annual Cineplex day with the Peel District School Board will be taking place on today at the SilverCity Brampton. Over 650 secondary school students from across the Peel DSB will participate, selecting from three feature film screenings in the morning and three in the afternoon. AM films include THE ROCKET (with NHL publisher and hockey mega-expert Dan Diamond in attendance), ONE WEEK, preceded by some comedy shorts by Adam Brodie and Dave Derewlany (with the always hilarious Adam & Dave in attendance) and SHARKWATER (with eco-warrior and filmmaker Emily Hunter in attendance, who's been setting students on fire with her enthusiasm and passion throughout REEL CANADA's seventh season, making stops on our national tour in Montague PEI, Montreal QC, and soon, Winnipeg MB).

In the afternoon, students will watch the zombie comedy FIDO, preceded by the short film EVELYN: THE CUTEST EVIL DEAD GIRL (with star Nadia Litz in attendance), the documentary PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI (with producer Patricia Aquino in attendance), and IRON ROAD. 

This event kicks off the "Ontario leg" of our national tour, which will include one more large Cineplex Day in Toronto on the 18th, and six other Do-It-Yourself festivals between now and mid-May.