The 7th annual Halifax Black Film Festival is back in-person and online this year to celebrate African Heritage Month from February 24 – 28. Here are five films we think you should not miss:
1Aisha, the story of a young Nigerian woman seeking asylum in Ireland who finds herself floundering in a maze of social services and bureaucracy, opens this year’s festival.
2Caleb Peters turns the lens on himself with the film short Mixed Messages as he tries to leave behind his destructive behaviour in exchange for a life of being a community outreach worker and musician.
3Juliet Mawusi’s short film My Type Of Hair tells the origin of Black Beauty, the struggles since slavery and after for Black women to keep their natural hair, and even to find the right products for their hair type.
4Lovely Jackson is exonerated prisoner Rickey Jackson’s first-hand account of the psychology of survival and spiritual fortitude required to withstand 39 years of wrongful incarceration for a murder he didn’t commit.
5Closing out this year’s festival is Raised Up West Side, exposing the deep-seated segregation, food insecurity, and mass incarceration that continues to shape the predominantly Black neighbourhoods of Chicago’s West Side.