The Cinematheque

Virtual Screening

“A cause for celebration … Cane River invites a rethinking of American film history.”

A.O. Scott, New York Times

New Restoration

The long arm of African-American slavery is writ large in Horace B. Jenkins’s lyrical and multilayered Southern love story, a revelatory work of American independent cinema believed lost for thirty years. Set in rural Louisiana and featuring an all-Black cast and crew, Cane River chronicles the star-crossed courtship between college football star Peter (Richard Romain), returned home after turning down the NFL draft, and plantation tour-guide Maria (magnetic Tômmye Myrick), hungry for independence and higher learning. Their romance is made taboo by the region’s complicated racial history: Peter is mixed-race Creole, descended from slave owners whose capital his Creole community still prospers from — a fact resented in Maria’s poorer Black neighbourhood. The gentle, unassumingly intelligent film was orphaned when Jenkins, its writer, director, and producer, died shortly after its completion in 1982. A negative, miraculously discovered in 2013, provided the elements for this brilliant and enthusiastically received restoration.

To stream this film:
Click on the ​“Stream” button above.
This will take you to Oscilloscope’s streaming platform, where you can watch the film.
Purchase a virtual ticket for $12 CAD (you may need to create an account first).
Once a virtual ticket has been purchased, you have three days to watch the film. 

Half of the virtual ticket price goes directly to The Cinematheque, making it a great way to support our non-profit organization during this challenging time. 

“Its rediscovery plants another missing beacon in the history of cinema … A work of visionary artistry and progressive imagination.”

Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“Revelatory … Jenkins’s one and only feature weaves living history, charged and messy, into a homespun, hopeful tale. It’s impossible not to wonder about — and wish for — what he might have done next.”

Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter