The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is presenting a stellar selection of seven National Film Board of Canada (NFB) produced and co-produced documentaries, including two world premieres, from April 25 to May 5 in Toronto.
Among them is the world premiere of A Mother Apart by Oya Media Group and the NFB will take place on April 26 at the Scotiabank Theatre, and on April 28 at the TIFF Lightbox.
Toronto filmmaker Laurie Townshend’s feature documentary accompanies powerhouse Jamaican-American poet and LGBTQ+ activist Staceyann Chin as she re-imagines the essential art of mothering.
The 89-minute documentary is produced by Alison Duke and Ngardy Conteh George of Oya Media Group, and Justine Pimlott of the NFB.
Staceyann Chin embodies multiple complex identities—poet, activist, lesbian, Jamaican American, mother. But the most complicated of all is “daughter.” Abandoned by her mother as a child, Staceyann has been seeking her out for decades, travelling the globe in a one-sided attempt to forge a meaningful bond with the woman who brought her into the world. And now, as the sole parent of nine-year-old Zuri, she wrestles with an all-consuming dilemma: how to mother a daughter when your own mother was missing in action.
Townshend is a Toronto-based filmmaker, writer, and educator. Her films centre on the human capacity to transform small acts of courage into quiet revolutions, as seen in the dramatic short The Railpath Hero (2013, TIFF Black Star Series), the unscripted series Human Frequency Streetdocs (2014) and the award-winning short doc Charley (2016).
