Streaming
  • June 11, 2021 through June 24, 2021
New Cinema

These films deny the idea of art for art’s sake and do not exist in self-designed aesthetic vacuums. Their creation represents a necessary reckoning for their makers and so perhaps too the viewers.”

Dedza Films

An omnibus film featuring works by emerging directors of colour, Who Will Start Another Fire is the inaugural project of Dedza Films, a distribution initiative, spearheaded by Malawian-American filmmaker Kate Gondwe, focused on showcasing underrepresented communities and the next wave of international moving-image storytellers. Titled after a question posed in Malawian poet Jack Mapanje’s Before Chilembwe Tree (1981)—but sans question mark, so as to propose an answer—this curated collection of nine shorts spans five countries and includes acclaimed festival selections from a talented and diverse roster of rising BIPOC filmmakers. Among its urgent, eclectic stories: a Chinese-American girl navigates a messy childhood in L.A.; a Nigerian boy is confronted with the traumas of his father’s generation; an Israeli-Palestinian lesbian couple in Tel Aviv contend with the transgression of their relationship; a trans woman returns home to discover her neighbourhood gentrified and hauntingly unrecognizable; and a young African-American man (Patrick Decile, Moonlight) struggles to define his Blackness against accusations of not being Black enough.

This virtual screening includes an introduction by Charles Burnett, director of Killer of Sheep (1978) and To Sleep with Anger (1990).

1.
Like Flying
Peier Tracy Shen, USA 2020. 15 min.

2.
Family Tree
Nicole Amani Magabo Kiggundu, Uganda 2020. 17 min.

3.
Troublemaker
Olive Nwosu, Nigeria 2019. 11 min.

4.
Polygraph
Samira Saraya, Israel 2020. 20 min.

5.
The Lights Are On, No One’s Home
Faye Ruiz, USA 2020. 10 min.

6.
By Way of Canarsie
Emily Packer, Lesley Steele, USA 2020. 14 min.

7.
The Rose of Manila
Alex Westfall, Philippines 2020. 12 min.

8.
Slip
Nicole Otero, USA 2019. 11 min.

9.
Not Black Enough
Jermaine Manigault, USA 2020. 19 min.

Media
Note

Feature Image: Not Black Enough, Jermaine Manigault, USA 2020
Media Images: Films 1–8 in screening order