DETAILS
Black Film Watch Parties
Online screenings in conjunction with Black History Month
Hosted by the St. Albert Public Library. Attendance at all events is free.
First event featuring Unarmed Verses by writer/director Charles Officer
85 minutes, event (including post-screening discussion) starting at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 5.
Visit sapl.ca to register for this event.
Screening co-hosted by librarian Geoff Manderscheid and Helen Agbonison, president of the African and African Descendents Friendship Club of St. Albert
Other series’ screenings to be held starting at 7 p.m. on Feb. 12 and 26.
Black History Month means many things that are all about bringing us together by fostering mutual understanding and appreciation. The St. Albert Public Library hopes to do as much as it can to maintain that spirit of togetherness even while the entrance doors are still on temporary COVID closure. This means doing things such as putting up Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus for its Reading Outloud: Teen Bookclub meeting on Feb. 9.
More so, the library has established a series of watch parties of films from the National Film Board – all online, naturally – that are set to run through February.
“The library has a role to play in connecting the community to Black stories for Black History Month, and film watch parties are a fun and engaging way to explore stories that help us better understand the present,” stated library assistant Geoff Manderscheid.
The first title up is writer/director Charles Officer's 2016 documentary Unarmed Verses, a look at a community facing imposed relocation.
"To understand how children feel when things are going on in their community because most times it's the eye of an adult that we view the society and we make decisions based on those views. Most times, people don't ask a child, ‘How are you feeling about some of the decisions that are going on in your community, about the things that are going on?’ It's a first step towards seeing the world through the eyes of a child," offered Helen Agbonison, president of the African and African Descendents Friendship Club of St. Albert.
“When we hear different sides of a story, it helps us to be more empathic and understanding of the other people in our world: their experiences. Some of the people that would have also experienced that relocation might as well be in our community. Their mindset through life is coloured by some of these experiences that they have gone through. For someone that has not gone through such experiences, watching this movie helps you to be more empathetic, be more welcoming of other people, because you'll be learning a little bit about their history, the way they live their lives."
Agbonison said it's healthy and important not only for community members to view films like Unarmed Verses together, but for adults and their children to view them as well.
“Kids ... some of the things how we think as adults, they don't understand it, so trying to make that connection for a kid ... it's important. As parents, some of the things that our kids learn, they learn from us. It is important for us as parents to help our children understand empathy, understand that thing that connects their soul to those good things, those good values of welcoming other people."
From the library's perspective, it's great to organize programs that keep everybody safe watching these things from home while still participating in community activities that are culturally worthwhile. In a way, it opens up new doors too, Manderscheid added.
"That's what we're after. We're still in a pandemic here. It's important for us to find new ways to meet the community where they're at. The format of a virtual watch party meets that need through a space without physical borders. Through that we get to connect to leaders and personalities in the Black community and we bring them to an audience that will hopefully reach beyond St. Albert, which is nice too."
He noted that, since the screening is online, there is no actual limit to the number of attendees as would be the case during an in-person event.
