Description
Live Screening at 7:30pm EST. Live at Film.Ca Cinemas, the feature film “Café Daughter” (dir. Shelley Niro) will be preceded by “Legacy Voices” in honour of Black History Month, written and directed by Sheridan Alumni Akil Mackenzie. A combined in person and zoom Q&A will follow the screenings.
Film Details: Café Daughter is the story of a nine year old half-Chinese half-Cree girl, Yvette Wong. On top of struggling to find her place in a small Saskatchewan community in the 1960s, she is also faced with the passing of her mother, who always told her children not to let anyone know they were Native Indian, as she believed they would have a better life if this information was kept hidden. Yvette confronts racism on the prairies in the classroom, with teachers and fellow students letting her know she is different from them. Despite wanting to be a doctor, her teacher states that girls can’t be doctors, and that maybe she would be better suited as a nurse. Yvette begins to explore and embrace her Cree identity when she befriends Maggie Wolf, a part Mi’kmaq girl who encourages Yvette to be proud of her ancestry. When her Cree ancestry is revealed at school, Yvette confronts discrimination, but perseveres to pursue her dream of going to medical school.
The film is preceded by a screening of Akil Mackenzie’s Legacy Voices: (2020) 15 min. Elderly members of the Halton community share their experiences as some of the first Black people to live in Ontario’s Halton Region.
Partners: Sheridan College, Film.ca Cinemas
