Community News
Film director Adrian Wallace pushes through pandemic with documentary in this year’s Caribbean Tales Film Festival
BY SELINA McCALLUM
A short documentary on gun violence in Toronto, directed by Adrian Wallace, will be featured among other Canadian filmmaker’s work for the Reel Black Canada, a themed night during the Caribbean Tales Film Festival.
Wallace is an award-winning director, screenwriter and actor from Toronto, Ontario. He has had his hand in many creative fields such as comedy writing, dramatic acts, acting for film and television, and film and television production.
His debut film, a short comedic doc titled “Pull Up Your Pants” screened at the 2014 Montreal World Film Festival and won ‘Best Student Documentary’. Since then, Adrian’s post-work has seen the eyes of festivals internationally. As the creator, writer, director and co-lead in the web series “Courtside”, it has notched a number of official selections to date and took home ‘Best Web Series’ at the 2018 Toronto Nollywood International Film Festival.
He directed and produced a documentary titled “Black Sun” that tells the story of two women anguished by acts of gun violence, and how they used their experiences to take a personal stand to help their affected communities.
“Black Sun was inspired by the world outside of our houses. There has been a surge of gun violence activity in Toronto and the GTA. I wanted to share a story from my personal experience, as well as those of who I know who are trying to use their platform to do better things in their community to promote anti-gun violence in their communities,” said Wallace.
One of Wallace’s subjects in the film is also a filmmaker herself, Kelly Fyffe-Marshall. Her goal is to educate people with every project that she produces. Part of Wallance’s film shows her in the process of writing her feature film “Summer of The Gun.”
“She’s devoting her first feature film to a very fatal summer that happened back in 2005. It was known as the summer of the gun because of all the deaths that happened. She lost 7 to 9 friends that year,” said Wallace. “She spoke on her experience losing friends and how it affected her making friends.”
Sherry Bonnelli was Wallace’s second documentary subject. She is a caucasian mother who lost her black son to gun violence. She has been running two organizations to reduce gun violence, one called Peace for Hamilton, where her family resides.
“She has been on the forefront of our community for a very long time,” said the director of Black Sun.
Wallace thinks that the black community needs to focus on police brutality, and the violence that happens within our own communities.
“It’s crazy that we live in a time where we have to really advocate for our own people and somehow prove to the world, for some reason, that black lives do actually matter. That our race is just as important as everyone else’s,” said Wallace. “But it’s also more important that we preserve the lives that we are taking from each other. It’s really not just about police brutality, it’s about, why are we raising our guns at each other?”
The Caribbean Tales Film Festival will be running from September 9th, 2020 to October 2nd, 2020 virtually on Caribbean Tales-TV.
Wallace, who is Jamaican, says that he is proud to be a part of the 15th anniversary for the Caribbean Tales Film Festival, which uplifts filmmakers of the Caribbean and African diaspora. This will be the fourth time Black Sun is screened at a festival in Canada.
“This being the first festival outside of the Black Film Festival in Toronto, Montreal and Halifax, is another blessing on top of things. It’s amazing to have an organization that you literally resonate with because of your background, the way you look, and the way you think, support your story by sharing it on their platform. It just makes telling that story that much more special and that much more powerful,” said Wallace.
Adrian is currently developing his second documentary film, his debut feature, season two of Courtside, and a TV show.