ReelHeART International Film Festival

Theater 222,  Innis College,
2 Sussex Street, U of T Campus, Toronto, M5S 1J5
(1 block south of St. George Subway)

In this story, six students discover themselves locked inside the school together and unknowingly meeting the same inevitable challenge. The students have to break out of the same school they got themselves locked in. All the students encounter situations that require them to utilize their own techniques when communicating, whether it be verbal or non verbal. This story puts emphasis on not what we say but more so how we react. Both in the community and school, miscommunication causes problematical tensions. Once they all come to realize that their community, their homes, their friends and families are at risk due to the rioting. They declare in their individual ways, that what is happening outside of the schools walls are more essential than their reason of why they are locked inside. It is how they leave, that determines their reality. A chain of events that lead to a frenzied Riot in the NewHam Borough of East London, takes place in the Afro-Caribbean Community of Carrolton (a fictional place). The plot takes place on the particular day of April 3rd.

In the national celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday each year, most Americans recall or learn about Dr. King’s leadership in confronting southern racism in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. Far less discussed is his prophetic leadership in 1966 confronting northern racism and poverty as part of the Chicago Freedom Movement. This film emphasizes King’s understanding of the link between the goals of the Civil Rights Movement and the social injustice of poverty. Candid interviews with Jesse Jackson, James Bevel, Michael Pfleger, and others, period photos and stirring traditional music by Rutha Harris shine a light on their struggle for justice. This film provides invaluable context to the national conversation about the corrosive effects of pervasive racism and persistent poverty in the U. S. today.