The 2017 Montreal International Black Film Festival’s theme was Speak up/Exprime-toi, featuring characters and communities who took a stand, and working to “illuminate a cultural heritage that is often silenced during the struggle against injustice.” Films featured included Kalushi: the Story of Solomon Mahlangu and Black Lives Matter, both set in South Africa. Kalushi explores police brutality and state violence after Solomon, a revolutionary voice, is punished to death by hanging for another Black man’s crime while corruption runs freely through the police force. Black Lives Matter explores how South Africa’s resources are exploited by the powerful elite, stripping the majority of the nation’s population of power and the fruits of their labor (“Showcasing characters that speak up,” Ginika Ume-Onyido, October 16).

The Daily interviewed the cast of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, a choreopoem that tells the stories of seven Black women who have faced oppression at different points in their lives. The conversation explored heartbreak, sisterhood, abortion, support, and emotion — all coalescing to tell honest stories of Black women. The performance depicted “the rainbow of emotions [Black women] are allowed to express,” reminding the audience that “Black women are rising and shining more than ever” (“Black women write history (again),” Gloria François, November 27).

On the first day of Black History Month, McGill’s Black Students Network (BSN) collaborated with CKUT for a 12 hour radio program called “Blacktalk.” The 2018 theme was Resistance, and conversations centered around embracing Black identity, the value of all-Black spaces, the complexities of the African Union, and the assumptions Black artists create. Blacktalk’s “primary aim was for Black folks to gather, discuss, and organize around different ideas related to Black liberation activism” (“Black voices galore, uncensored,” Ella Corkum, February 12).

Queer Storytelling

The Daily interviewed queer icon Eileen Myles about their latest publication, Afterglow, a memoir about life with their dog, Rosie. The expansive interview discussed the intricacy of memory and life, as Myles said experiencing their dog’s death allowed them to connect the spaces of childhood and adulthood, reimagining moments and memories. They emphasized the therapeutic nature of writing, which “is a performance of having, knowing and loving something and it’s a hit-and-miss process of making that thing come alive again” (“Blurring the boundaries of genre,” Panayot Gaidov, October 23).

Travis Alabanza’s first chapbook, Before I Step Outside [You Love Me] explores self-care practices for trans, racialized people that transcend individual experiences and work towards creating community. Their poetry also explores the violence of direct aggression as well as the harm allowed and perpetuated by silent bystanders, the seemingly infinite space of creating one’s own gender that contributes to senses of authenticity and loneliness, and sketching a trans-feminine future beyond binary, punitive, and categorizing systems, saying, “It is not enough to just be tolerated, I want to feel loved” (“On faggotry,” Arno Pedram, November 20).

Indigenous Resistance through Art

Emerging Wolastoqey artist Jeremy Dutcher, one of the 500 or so remaining speakers of the Wolastoqey (or Maliseet) language, performed at the Rialto Theatre. He told the audience that “when you lose a language, you don’t just lose the language. You lose a whole way of looking at the world.” Dutcher performed music from his debut album, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, on which he transcribes Wolastoqey songs recorded by an ethnographer in the early 1900s, revitalizing the music and language of his people and adding personal flairs of jazz and piano-influenced sound (“Of language and song,” Kayla Holmes, September 25).

As part of First Voices Week, an Indigenous-led initiative to celebrate Indigenous voices around Tiotia:ke (Montreal), Cinema Politica Concordia screened six short films about communities on Turtle Island. The first film screened, Nuuca, elaborated on the relation of “violence committed against Indigenous women and the exploitation of land by resource extraction industries near the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota,” emphasizing that “just as the land is being used, these women are being used.” The Violation of a Civilization Without Secrets examines how Indigenous oral histories have historically been erased or discarded for not fitting the mold of Western epistemology and systems of evidence. Ohero-Kon: Under the Husk depicts the childhood friendship between Kaienkwinehtha and Kasennakohe, two women living in Akwesasne who partake in a four-year rite of passage ceremony in their community. These films by Indigenous creators represent their communities with power and agency (“Indigenous resistance on screen,” Arvaa Balsara, February 5).

Radical Jewishness

Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) hosted a Rosh HaShanah celebration attended by generations of Jewish activists, from students to older members of the community. Conversation about cooperation, community organizing, and personal growth abounded while guests enjoyed a variety of vegan and vegetarian dishes including stuffed cabbage, vegan brisket, assorted salads, and lokshen kugel. One of the evening’s main organizer’s, Hani Abramson, spoke about Rosh HaShanah as “a time for reflection and spiritual renewal. Many of us view our activism as a deeply spiritual activity informed by our connections to our Jewish identities. By fostering a Jewish space to celebrate Jewish custom and tradition that stands for justice in Palestine, we are defying decades of effort by the Zionist project to intrinsically marry Jewishness with the state of Israel” (“Apples, honey, and radical Jewishness,” Zachary Kleiner, October 2).

IJV also hosted a radical Jewish reading group called “Shabook Shalom.” The evening began by performing the Havdallah ritual followed by a critique of the second chapter of Theodor Herzl’s infamous Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), titled “The Jewish Question.” IJV began with this text as a starting point for discussing, critiquing, and condemning political Zionism. Intricately exploring the complexities of belonging, Jacob poses the questions: “What does it mean to be living in diaspora on colonised land? What is the meaning of a homeland after generations and generations of wandering? How can anti-colonialist and anti-Zionist Jewish stories and perspectives be a part of wider discourses surrounding transformative justice?” (“Shabook Shalom,” Tai Jacob, February 19).

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Aromanticism is a concept album—it is contemplative, critical, and focused. Before the release, Sumney shared an essay on his social media detailing his thoughts behind the record. He claims, “many of the origin stories about the inception of our species establish this blueprint for coexistence—that everybody has an equal and opposite body, a destined companion without which we are incomplete. Our modern construct of romance still upholds this paradigm; romantic love is the paramount prize of existence. But what if I can’t access that prize?” With this question in mind, Sumney seeks to interrogate our preoccupation, obsession, and yearning for romantic love, and consider instead love’s other possibilities. He wonders “how privileged people can feel love interpersonally but still adhere to systems of social hierarchy that cause them to treat othered groups with loveless indifference.” He engages with the gritty side of love and romance—who has access to it? How do structures of oppression, operations of privilege, and personal feelings intersect, and how does one love in the space where these forces meet?

The album begins with an instrumental reprise of one of Sumney’s first singles from his 2014 Mid City Island EP, “Man on the Moon.” It takes harmonies from the original track, which are unfamiliar without the song’s title. The following track sets the tone for the rest of the album: “Don’t Bother Calling” incorporates lush guitars and smooth harmonies to express Sumney’s insecurities in romance, singing “You need a solid / But I’m made of liquid / I don’t know what we are / But all I know is I can’t go away with you with half a heart.” After the music fades away, we hear a faint, private moment, where Sumney voices, “well, I tried.”

This mindset seeps into his next track, a revamped version of one of his first singles, “Plastic,” which emphasizes vulnerability more than insecurity. “I know what it is to be broken and be bold . . . I know what itís like to behold and not be held,” Sumney croons. He conveys a personal intricacy and self-awareness that should not be mistaken with fragility, whispering in the chorus, “my wings are made of plastic.”

Aromanticism pursues a concept in narrative form. Sumney begins by drawing the listener into his mental space with sequences of harmonies, then reveals his position as a romantic subject. It is a position fraught with vulnerability, walls, and feelings of non-belonging. In “Quarrel,” he suggests this feeling of non-belonging by calling out the differing subject positions that influence or create power dynamics, which pervade even interpersonal romance. If two individuals come from differing flows of identity, then is the partnership equal? “Calling this a quarrel isn’t right / quoting this a quarrel / so immorally implies / we’re equal opponents . . . we cannot be lovers / long as I’m the other,” he sings.

The album’s climax is “Lonely World,” which perfectly captures Sumney’s idiosyncratic sound. It’s prefaced by a spoken word interlude, “Stoicism,” in which he recounts telling his mom that he loved her as they drove in her old caravan, and she simply replied “thank you.” Perhaps this experience of familial love mimics experiences in romance when there is not an equal give and take, where one party does not receive fulfillment or recognition for the love and labour they pour in. Giving more than you receive, or giving more than deserved, can be isolating for the one loving. “Lonely World” delves into these feelings of isolation and loneliness to an almost dizzying extent. After the first quiet verse, the phrase “lonely world” is looped several times, each time adding more harmonies and instruments until it becomes overwhelming, just as lonely thoughts can be. “After all the laughter, emptiness prevails / Born into this world with no consent or choice / lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely,” Sumney utters these words in different pitches but in the same tone of dreadful longing. The song’s diverse instrumentation and heavy force brings the listener to a palpable point of confrontation. When does the loneliness end? Does it?

“Make Out in My Car” provides some sort of response, but not necessarily an answer. The song repeats, “I’m not tryna go to bed with ya / I just wanna make out in my car.” Sumney looks not for romance or even sex, but just something that is not isolating. He takes this a step further in “Doomed,” which he describes as the album’s thesis statement. The song is haunting, slow, and introspective. Sumney seems to find some kind of sad resolve after repeatedly asking: “Am I vital / If my heart is idle? Am I doomed?” He later expands on the question, wondering, “If lovelessness is godlessness, will you cast me to the wayside?” The depth of these questions digs beyond self-worth, and they instead contemplate where purpose lies if not attached to, settled in, or driven by pursuit of love.

“Indulge Me” is the record’s final lyrical piece. It is slow and meanders through all of the vulnerabilities, hurt, and melancholy explored previously on the record. “Nobody troubles my body after / All my old others have found lovers / Indulge me / Indulge me,” Sumney sings. It is hard to tell if he has answered his big questions, but his pleas for another to indulge his loneliness err towards an austere melancholy. He polishes off the record with “Self-Help Tape,” which sounds lighter than the rest of the album. A cacophony of angelic harmonies make sounds but not words, and as a pulsating swirl of guitar strums brings the harmonies to a close, Sumney whispers, “imagine being free / imagine tasting free / imagine feeling free / imagine feeling.” It is honest. It shows the constraints of being a human craving love, and being a person weighted by oppressive structures that claim romantic love to be a universal feeling.
In his essay, Sumney notes that the “not-yet dictionary definition of ‘aromantic’ is someone who doesn’t experience romantic love, or does to a diminished, abnormal degree.” He explores this concept with soulful words and sophisticated sound. He references an inability to feel invested in romantic love, but nevertheless is able to experience romantic thoughts and crave another. He destabilizes the notion that romantic love is inherent in each of us, and instead proposes that we are conditioned to love, though face barriers to this conditioned pursuit of romance. The album “seeks to interrogate the idea that romance is normative and necessary.” Seemingly still in search of answers, Sumney distills ideas of his personal identity and his interactions with the structures of the world around him. He notes that these structures can be oppressive and pervasive even in love, despite it feeling so personal and separate—but is it really?

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August: Osage County by Dawson College Productions ran from January 23 to February 4. The Pulitzer-winning play by Tracy Letts chronicles a tumultuous time in the life of an Oklahoma family. The play opens with protagonist Violet Weston’s elderly husband, Beverley, committing suicide just before their children and grandchild come to visit, forcing the family to confront their dark, hidden realities.

The cast members, part of Dawson College’s professional acting program, performed an impressive show against a simple, handmade backdrop. Props were also eliminated from this production, inviting the audience to imagine the action as the characters realistically imitated smoking, physical fighting between family members, and eating a post-funeral meal. By simplifying and decluttering theatrical technicalities, the actor’s heightened creativity, attention to detail, and complex acting was able to be better appreciated.

[The play] asked its audience to consider the importance and complexities of personal relationships, mental health and the effects of drug use, and the implications of dysfunctional family dynamics – without presenting a way to reconcile these elements.

August, comprised of a predominantly female cast, explores the relationships between women in the family – and specifically investigates the complexities of family and mental health, the process of grief, and the realities of addiction. Barbara, Violet’s eldest daughter, exemplifies support and loyalty in how she handles Violet’s drug addiction. She is encouraging without being patronizing or forceful, but she also does not let her mother suffer in silence. She opens up discussion of the drug use and suggests possibilities for recovery, while juggling her own divorce from a cheating husband and considering the effects of the divorce on her daughter, Jean. Barbara’s younger sister, Karen, embodies coolness and spunk. She initially seems silly and even ignorant of her family’s hardships, but throughout the play, she embraces growth as she experiences harassment from her fiance and learns to be a more present sister, daughter, and aunt.

Violet suffers from mouth cancer due to excessive smoking, but then becomes addicted to her medication and more intense substances. The play carefully approaches the topic of drug addiction, conveying through Beverley’s suicide and the family’s subsequent focus on Violet in her time of grief, that it is possible to recover with support from loved ones. However, the play also sheds light on the effects of toxic family dynamics on one’s mental health. Throughout the play, Violet’s daughters often gaslight and criticize her, excusing their behaviour with the fact of her addiction.

August, comprised of a predominantly female cast, explores the relationships between women in the family – and specifically investigates the complexities of family and mental health, the process of grief, and the realities of addiction.

At first, August seemingly relies on racialized and gendered stereotypes in its portrayal of Johnna, the Indigenous nanny and housekeeper serving a white family. She is initially servile, spiritual, and financially reliant on the Weston family, who assume the position of white saviours. However, as her character develops, the play seems to show reverence and respect for Indigenous traditions. In one scene, Johnna shows Jean, the Weston’s teenage granddaughter, photos from her parents’ wedding. Jean compliments their “costumes,” and Johnna explains to Jean, and the audience, the cultural significance of her parents’ marriage ceremony. This gave the character a voice and the opportunity to reclaim representation of her identity from the mouths of the white Weston family.

August: Osage County dealt with provocative elements that, at times, forayed into dark, heavy moments. It asked its audience to consider the importance and complexities of personal relationships, mental health and the effects of drug use, and the implications of dysfunctional family dynamics – without presenting a way to reconcile these elements. Instead, it closes on an ambiguous note as Violet weeps into the arms of Johnna, the two of them alone together indefinitely, stating the closing line from T.S. Eliot’s Hollow Men: “this is the way the world ends.”

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The Daily spoke with Nguyen, who said it was important for him when writing the script to “rely on the people who had lived there […] Even spending a year there does not allow you to grasp the sense of what it’s like to live in the Arctic or the idiosyncrasies that are there.” Such idiosyncrasies include the tight-knit community, scathing cold, and regularly seeing the Aurora Borealis, like Lucy does in the film.

“Even spending a year there does not allow you to grasp the sense of what it’s like to live in the Arctic or the idiosyncrasies that are there.”– Nguyen

Two Lovers and a Bear was not the only film about Nunavut screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this year. Zacharias Kunuk, Inuk director and producer, premiered his latest work, Maliglutit, at TIFF. Kunuk is perhaps best known for directing Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, which holds an honourable place in the canon of Canadian cinema as the first full-length film to feature an Indigenous cast, who spoke completely in Inuktitut.

As a film that relies heavily on the visuality of its setting for storytelling – its plot revolves around its setting, not the other way around – Two Lovers and a Bear needs to be examined for the ways in which it engages with the conventions of representing Nunavut and Canadian landscapes in general. Representations of landscapes in Canadian art and cinema have a history of taking on nationalistic undertones, exemplified by the Group of Seven – a group of Canadian artists most famous for producing paintings of vast and empty landscapes. These romanticized depictions not only helped to justify the colonialist project – by representing the land as uninhabited and therefore ready to be conquered – but also proved essential to building a visual definition of the Canadian state, which is marked by its glorious, undisturbed forests, mountains, and glaciers. In other words, Canada has come to be defined through artistic depictions of its land.

Two Lovers and a Bear needs to be examined for the ways in which it engages with the conventions of representing Nunavut and Canadian landscapes

Nunavut, in turn, occupies a special place in this visual vocabulary of state-building. A decade after the release of Atanarjuat, a growing fascination with Nunavut has encouraged filmmakers to produce more stories about the Arctic. Two Lovers and a Bear participates in this legacy of articulating Nunavut as both foreign and unique to Canada, its landscapes at once dangerous and beautiful. Whereas Atanarjuat disrupts this paradigm of representation by employing an Inuit cast, who have a personal stake in telling a traditional Inuk legend set in Nunavut, Two Lovers and a Bear unfortunately falls short. In hiring a primarily white cast and employing Inuit actors merely as extras, Nguyen’s film fails to acknowledge the original and rightful owners of the this land, who still very much exist, and refuses them an opportunity to reclaim their land and the narratives surrounding it.

Though regrettable in its production choices, Two Lovers and a Bear makes effective use of the setting to reflect the inner state of the characters. The film shows shots of stark, vast, snowy landscapes to create a dismal and isolated mood that illustrates Roman and Lucy’s emotional suffering. They are shown several times throughout the film having dispassionate sex, implying a growing emotional distance which may be due to the increasing psychological turmoil caused by painful pasts filled with domestic abuse, from which Lucy and Roman had fled as they settled in Nunavut. Lucy regularly sees visions of her late abusive father, while Roman turns to drinking. Both of these realities are consistently referenced, but not fully dealt with, deflating these heavy life experiences into mere plot devices.

Two Lovers and a Bear makes effective use of the setting to reflect the inner state of the characters.

Two Lovers and a Bear uses its Nunavut setting to emphasize that while life can seem stark, impossible, and haunting, one only needs to keep their ground through hardship, attempt to live freely, and cross their river when spring comes. It does a convincing job of letting the sublimity of the land speak for itself and effectively supplement the plot. Had it embraced its setting as an opportunity to represent Nunavut’s Indigenous communities, it would come off as less exploitative: Nunavut and its Indigenous inhabitants are neither a spectacle nor a backdrop to a tragic love story of the colonizers, however well-structured and moving it may be.

Vinnie Karetak, one of the few Indigenous actors in the film, expressed at the TIFF, “we are tired of watching fake Inuit actors.” Hopefully in the future, directors participating in the burgeoning film industry in Nunavut can actively centre the Indigenous communities that reside there and allow them agency in representation.

Catch Two Lovers and a Bear in theatres starting October 7.

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On September 13, comedy production company The Brunch Club presented The Liar Liar Show at Theatre Sainte-Catherine. Three women were seated on stage and recounted personal stories of mischief, “glamorous New York nights,” and dates gone wrong. The interactive game show had three rounds: the contestants took turns telling a made-up story, and the audience guessed the liar from each round, with the most deceptive performer winning.

Comedian Tranna Wintour, a trans woman, shared a particularly memorable story of prank-calling her married grade school teacher, who was “hot in a generic, Sears catalog way,” and pretending to be the other woman. This resulted in said teacher’s wife phoning the police and Wintour receiving an awkward call to the principal’s office. Comedian and McGill student D.J. Mausner shared an account of a horrendous date: within the first few minutes, the man ever so smoothly said, while descending the steps to Cafe Resonance, “wow, I didn’t think I’d be going down this soon into the night.” Mausner won as the biggest liar for the night, and was awarded the coveted prize — a slinky.

Throughout Ladyfest, performers showcased a variety of talents ranging from improv to storytelling to burlesque.

After the show, The Daily spoke with The Brunch Club’s producer, Sasha Manoli, about their mission as a collective and their presence in Montreal. According to Manoli, The Brunch Club aims to produce and support a type of comedy that she herself would like to consume – comedy created by women. In participating in shows such as The Liar Liar Show, comics have to spawn new material, which is valuable in a comedic community where most comics reuse the same content.

Discussing The Brunch Club’s preference for smaller venues, Manoli stated that low-capacity spaces such as Theatre Sainte-Catherine create a positive atmosphere with “small, interactive elements that allow comics to thrive in a creative space and gauge their success.” Most importantly, by encouraging its audience to create comedy themselves, The Brunch Club’s community forms from its audience, providing platforms that foster diversity as well as “the competitive energy” – exemplified by The Liar Liar Show’s game show format – that comedy thrives on.

Tranna Wintour appeared again as host of the burlesque show “C’est WHAT?” on September 15. She began by asking the small crowd of fifteen who their favourite ladies were; responses included Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Celine Dion, and others. Tranna glowed at these responses and said that with favourite ladies such as these, the crowd would be in for a treat.

The burlesque performance had some stripteases that were far more humorous than others. “Ottawa’s Hourglass and a Half” Black burlesque performer Saffron St. James appeared in a silk dress with three enormous plume-feather fans, and ended her performance by removing the silk dress in a dramatic fashion, fanning herself while fifties doo-wop played in the background. Her act earned tremendous applause, as did Montreal’s Penny Romanoff, when she held a dish of food in each hand and asked the audience which sounded better – “pizza so cheesy it goes down easy” or “a piece of pie – only thing sweeter is between my thighs.” The audience chose the pizza, and Penny stripped while aggressively taking bites of and simulating a blowjob on the pizza.

[It] was rewarding to see women and femmes of colour seize control of their bodies and ooze confidence.

Local performer El Diablo emerged with green gloves and a costume that looked like a joint. She eventually stripped into a thong and bra made of marijuana leaves, and consumed lots of sour cream and onion chips throughout. She exited the stage with a lit joint in her mouth. Many found this act to be less substantial and creative than some of the other acts, which were more varied in style, shown by the light applause and rating of 3 out of 5. Regardless, it was rewarding to see women and femmes of colour seize control of their bodies and ooze confidence.

Sunday nights are for improv at Theatre Sainte-Catherine, and Ladyfest continued this tradition for its final show, drawing the largest crowd yet. Twelve women performed together in varying groups for four rounds, each with different mixes of performances and prompts led by host Sandi Armstrong. In one performance, a high school’s resident 24-year-old “cool girl” taught a new student how to be cool. When prompted by her mentor to “say something someone cool would say,” the apprentice retorted, “I want a cigarette.” Another performance was a two-person bachelorette party that culminated in the bride-to-be revealing her feelings for her best friend, and the two planning to elope for a beautiful lesbian romance — until the bride-to-be revealed that she was pregnant.

Overall, the festival showcased Montreal’s diverse talent and intimate comedy community. Both on stage and in the audience, many familiar faces appeared each night. The crowds were enthusiastic and warm, offering constant applause and encouraging responses. The women of Ladyfest graced the stage with confidence and sharp wit, and highlighted an often forgotten principle of comedy: you can be funny, hilarious even, without being offensive. To encapsulate both Ladyfest, and comedy as an art, in the words of Coucou Belliveau, a performer at Sunday’s improv show, “break a confident pose and they’ll love you.”

A previous version of this article referred to Tranna Wintour as a woman of colour. In fact, Wintour is white. The Daily regrets the error. 

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