Top Picks from Dalton Higgins

As a former university track athlete, I find it criminally suspicious that I was never taught anything about Canada’s OG sprint star Harry Jerome in school. Before there was Ben Johnson (my personal fave Canadian sprinter) or current don Andre De Grasse, Jerome was the fastest sprinter in the world. And this documentary about Jerome, by the late filmmaker Charles Officer, is one of my favourites from his delightful canon. The poignant chronicling of Jerome’s tough journey battling overt racism and injury, coupled with the stunning black-and-white archival footage of Jerome, makes this a necessary watch for all Canadians. I also think that because Officer just happened to be a former elite athlete (hockey player), he was able to add a different level of care, sensitivity and nuance to Jerome’s story. - By Dalton Higgins

As the son of Jamaican immigrants who came to Toronto in the late sixties for “a better life,” I can say there are few audiovisual documents that speak to that experience. Home Feeling poignantly and presciently relays the challenges experienced by some of this first wave of Caribbean immigrants who landed in Toronto’s Jane and Finch corridor—one of the most unfairly maligned government-subsidized housing developments—characterized by failed integration schemes, chronic police interrogation and profiling, and lack of job opportunities. Outside of being a historical feat (i.e., this is one of the first films directed by a Black Canadian woman, Jennifer Hodge de Silva, with co-director Roger McTair), watching this classic film is also timely given the current Defund the Police movements gaining steam, post-George Floyd, and the fact that the Jane-Finch neighbourhood is about to undergo a gentrification process in 2024 that will see the popular Jane Finch Mall being redeveloped to include some new real estate options that might not jive too well with the lower-income residents in the area. - By Dalton Higgins

I used to see model Renee Thompson on music-video sets back in the early aughts. And there was no way of knowing about the struggles she endured being a Black model in an industry that sorely lacks diversity on many levels (runway models, agents, designers, magazine editors) until I saw this film. The Colour of Beauty outlines in very clear terms the impacts of being told by casting agents that they only want “white” girls, or that if you’re Black you have to sport European features and be a “white girl dipped in chocolate.” That and feeling old at 25, needing to be waif-like and un-African, or singularly getting work as a token Black girl, must lead to harmful long-term impacts on the self-esteem of Black women in the fashion industry. Watching this short also reminded me of the poem “Witeman Country” by dub poet Mutabaruka, where in the hook he chants, “It no good fi stay in a witeman country too long,” recalling the dire long-term psychological effects of being viewed as a second-class citizen and not beautiful in most areas of life in countries like Canada—whereas if you spend time living in countries with predominantly Black citizenry, Black is beautiful every day, and Renee might have far less to prove. - By Dalton Higgins