Celebrate Black History Month 2021 On VIFF Connect

The Vancouver International Film Festival Society is delighted to announce this year's Black History Month series curated by Nya Lewis and titled Everywhere We Are.

The series is a celebration of Black resilience, Black liberation, Cinema for the Movement. It includes seven features, with films from Canada, Africa, the Caribbean, UK, and the US, and a shorts program (Canadian Resistance), all available from February 5 on VIFF Connect.

Curatorial Statement from Nya Lewis

"In this season, VIFF celebrates Black voices in cinema, engaging in the storytelling of Black filmmakers, Black writers and Black actors that are shifting the paradigm, using film as a language of revolution. Amongst the calls to action, the movement also exists to safeguard Black expression. It defends our humanity, it protects our access to being. The revolution is ALL THAT encompasses Black liberation. It is joy, rest, laughter, and play. It is fight, pain, glory, and triumph. Against all odds, Black filmmakers create reflections of the nuanced social, political and economic experiences of the Black community. The definition of resistance is in constant flux, shape shifting. It is as resourceful as we are, ever expanding to find fuller ways to continue the critical discourse surrounding the politicization of Blackness.

Everywhere We Are celebrates the underrepresented stories of global Black resistance, cinema for the movement. Beyond the notion of representation, we acknowledge the impact of documenting these untold stories. The unbridled willingness to name and reclaim what revolution looks like to us. It is in the mundane, the day to day, occupying space, and showing up for the collective well-being. By merely authentically living, these films forge critical connections, and reveal the power of worldwide activism. The movement is everywhere we are."

Single tickets and packs available at viff.org For more details about the 2021 Black History Month programming visit viff.org.