\n\t\u201cThis is a really strange and bizarre time. Stories like True North and others like it are no longer going to have the support or a platform,\u201d Norville said as she and Stephenson came by Deadline\u2019s studio in Toronto, joined by two of the activists from their film who played key roles in that uprising in Montreal. \u201cIt\u2019s a moment that I think people should really be fearful of because when we are being silenced like this, what\u2019s next?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIn the case of True North, it\u2019s not just the content and the lived experiences [of participants], but it\u2019s also the form,\u201d Stephenson said, referencing the film\u2019s bold stylistic approach. \u201cIt\u2019s about the independent artist, and we are facing a fascistic regime that is intent on destroying independent cinema, intent on destroying not just our voices, but any kind of independence with regards to freedom of speech, freedom of how we tell our stories. We are at a battle of narratives. We\u2019re at a crossroads that is going to require a lot of effort from all of us to kind of rally and follow the lead of those who instigated the movement for greater justice in \u201868 and \u201869 as our beacon for what we need to do next.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"'True](\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\u2018True North\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Studio 112<\/p>\n
\n\tThat movement has been largely forgotten today, but at the time it shook Montreal, the province of Qu\u00e9bec and Canada as a whole. It came to a head in 1969 when young people occupied Sir George Williams University (now known as Concordia University) demanding the university confront institutionalized racism against the Black student body.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOne has to understand that it occurred as a revolt within a larger context of political change,\u201d noted Norman Cook, one of young activists from the film, \u201cand that is the emergence of Qu\u00e9bec power and the retrieving, if you will, of their rights [the French-speaking populace] within the society\u2026 It did also surface forms of white racism as well that often were deflections of anti-French racism onto the Black population.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tRELATED: Watch trailer for True North<\/a><\/p>\n \n\tRodney John, another major figure in the uprising at Sir George Williams University, explained that he moved to Canada in 1965 from Saint Vincent in the eastern Caribbean, a place he described as having a sense of cohesion despite differences between people. Not so in his new country, he would discover.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhen I came to Canada, I discovered that for a number of years I was colored, then I was a Negro, and then at some point I was Black,\u201d John recalled. \u201cOkay, what did that mean to me as an individual? The other thing that was really annoying, the assumption of integrity, honesty, that supposedly was the foundation of white society was totally destroyed in dealing with people who were white. To move from that island, to come to Canada to confront racism\u2026 I came in \u201865 and today I still do not understand. I wish someone would explain to me.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWatch the full conversation in the video above.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Deadline Studio at TIFF is hosted at\u00a0Bisha Hotel<\/a>\u00a0and sponsored by\u00a0Cast & Crew<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Final Draft<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"True North, Mich\u00e8le Stephenson\u2019s documentary premiering at the Toronto Film Festival today, explores a critical moment in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,8943,8944,409,111,139,69,3572,1998,8945],"class_list":["post-6982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-leslie-norville","tag-michu00e8le-stephenson","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tiff","tag-toronto-film-festival","tag-true-north"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}