‘I Am Not Your Negro’ is one of the films programmed in the Cinema sous les Etoiles, (Cinema under the Stars) festival in the Montreal region this summer.
“I think there’s an appetite for documentary films’
‘I Am Not Your Negro’ tells the story of the American black civil rights activist and writer James Baldwin, and his attempt to tell the story of his three colleagues in the movement, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, who were all killed or assassinated in the 1960’s.
Baldwin completed only 30 pages of the book under the title, ‘Remember This House’.
Director Raoul Peck weaved the experiences, the stories and the file footage of the movement in the 1960’s, with the work of the current Black Lives Matter movement.
Nicolas Goyette is co-coordinator and programmer of the film series.
“Everybody’s talking about that issue right now, especially after Charlottesville, and all the division in the Quebec political scene also, about the subject of systemic racism, so… that’s what we do at Cinema sous les Etoiles.”
He says this is their mission. These films under the stars are all documentaries.
They’re not generally light, entertaining fare.
The 40 long-form and 29 shorts have included titles such as the Noam Chomsky film, ‘Requiem for the American Dream’ and ‘Angry Inuk’.
Listen‘I Am Not Your Negro’ is a powerful film. It won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival when it premiered there last year.
Nicolas Goyette says audiences of 500 people on some occasions have attended the 75 screenings.
Now in their eighth year, the team have organized these events with panel discussions on the relevant topics before and after the screenings.
“I think there’s an appetite for documentary films” Goyette says.
He says in an era of so-called “fake news” and dwindling budgets on the part of mainstream media to assign journalists to foreign bureaus, documentary films can fill the gap.
“It puts the social debate in a public space, which is really good for democracy I would say.”
‘I Am Not Your Negro’ screens tomorrow night following a panel discussion that will establish the local context for many of the issues.
The weather forecast looks good.
For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.