Vancouver-based poet and filmmaker Brandon Wint presents two deeply-personal short films, each of which is propelled by poetry and jazz. In Moving For Love Brandon explores for the first time the details of his family’s migration from the Caribbean to Canada in the early 1970s. With help from his mother and grandmother, Brandon probes the social and familial forces that prompted his family to make the difficult journeys from Barbados and Jamaica. Brandon uses these histories as a portal through which to consider his own relationships to love, sacrifice and new beginnings, as a poet who has sought love and belonging in Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton and now Vancouver. The film is scored by Vancouver jazz luminaries Feven Kidane, Yoro Noukoussi, and Quincy Mayes.

The second short film, Backbone is a vulnerable memoir exploring how cerebral palsy, the visible disability with which Brandon lives, complicates the notion and practical realities of health and self-care. The film maps Brandon’s journey toward forgiving himself, and his family, for the ways that his complex physicality made accessing care difficult, bewildering and sometimes painful. This film, too, is propelled by a dynamic musical score which features contributions from Edmonton’s Brian Raine, Montreal’s Theo Abellard, and Vancouver’s Anjalica Solomon. Both films use jazz as a means of prompting vulnerability and spiritual fortitude.

The night will begin with a musical performance by Feven Kidane, Yoro Noukoussi, Quincy Mayes and Brandon Wint. As poet and music critic Harmony Holiday once said “music is important because it governs the boundaries of thought that exceed language.”

We hope that this evening of film, poetry and music will be beyond words.

6:30 pm: Intros, live music and poetry
7:30 pm: Intermission
7:50 pm: Films and Q&A