Film festival brings stories of underrepresented Canadians to drive-in

The Durham Region International Film Festival (DRIFF) is coming soon.

The latest instalment of DRIFF’s summer drive-in series, Shifting the Narrative, brings a feature-length documentary and an accompanying short film to the big screen.

These films aim to critically explore ideas to identity and belonging within Black and Filipino communities in Eastern Canada. The films in this program invite audiences to celebrate the ties that bind everyone in the quest to create a better Canada, says DRIFF.

Event-goers can catch the feature-length documentary, Becoming Labrador, preceded by the short documentary, Black + Belonging, at DRIFF’s drive-in headquarters at the Town of Whitby Municipal Building, 575 Rossland Rd. E., on Thursday, July 29 at dusk.

Becoming Labrador is a portrait of Filipino immigrants who live and work in the Labrador interior – some of whom are living on the other side of the world from their loved ones.

In collaboration with the DRIFF team, Becoming Labrador co-director Rohan Fernando personally selected Francesca Ekwuyasi’s short documentary, Black + Belonging, to precede his feature presentation.

Ekquyasi’s film highlights several Black artists living in Halifax, who discuss the ways they find community and belonging through their artistic practices.

In a DRIFF-exclusive personal essay, Fernando reflects on the similarities between the films, in which he says, “Both, in their own way, explore the themes of home and of identity, particularly from the perspective of the ‘outsider.’”

Continuing the creative conversation beyond the drive-in, the full personal essay and a recorded conversation between these filmmakers will be available at driff.ca.

Head to driff.ca/shifting-the-narrative-canadian-mosaic for more information on this screening. Tickets to each event will be $15 all in and can be purchased at https://www.seatgiantevents.ca/event/driff-drive-in-series