A Winter Tale

Frances-Anne Solomon has done a fantastic job of combining a well-written script and the perfect team of actors to bring A Winter Tale to fruition on the big screen. This movie is a brutally honest and personal view of the social ills that affect young black males at risk in Toronto. Rather than just presenting a violent shoot 'em-up type of movie, Solomon shows us the lives of men from a community who are proactive in their attempt to deal with the emotional and psychological effects of poverty, and urban violence. These are elements that are hardly highlighted in depth in news stories we hear and see locally.

What makes this movie come alive is not just the stories told through a group of men seeking answers, but it's also the passion and emotion evoked by Miss G (played by the phenomenal Leonie Forbes). The history of conflict between her son Ian and herself is emotionally riveting, as is the performance of Canadian actor Peter Williams who plays the role of the social worker, Gene Wright, who initiates the support group for black males.

A Winter Tale is a special film told from a unique angle. It's a poignant story that is not exclusive to Black Canadians, but to anyone concerned about the future of their community and the children growing up under similar conditions.

I have to say, I loved this movie (thank you Peter for bringing it with you) The story was very moving (well done Frances Anne) with a few fun moments and tragedy. However, the underlying story is very fresh today, whether in Canada, USA, UK, and all over the world. Its an issue that really needs to be noted, and for people to start realising. We are a multicultural society now, we have to learn to live and respect one another. This movie would be very good shown in schools, to show kids the gritty side of life, not the glamorised side like a Hollywood movie.

I have to say, after watching A Winter Tale, I'm considering a career change. I'm seriously considering re-training and doing something more meaningful with my life, to help kids/youths/supporting adults. I've been thinking about it for a while, and with seeing A Winter Tale, I'm very seriously contemplating this move. Sorry, back to the movie: Would I watch the movie again? Yes Would I buy the movie? Yes! Well done everyone on the movie!!

It's such a relief to see a film that's both set in Toronto and features Toronto as one of its principal stars. This hasn't really happened since 1970 when Don Shebib's landmark Canadian film "Going Down the Road" filled us with an extraordinary sense of pride in our Canadian culture. That's the first good thing about "A Winter Tale."

The next good thing about this film is that Telefilm Canada, our federal cultural agency whose business is the development and promotion of the Canadian film industry, had the good sense to provide funding support to this small indie production. Telefilm decision makers could not have known, more than three years ago when the film was struggling to overcome all the barriers that make it so hard for independent Canadian films to see the light of day, that this little film would have the phenomenal success it has achieved – across Canada and in Great Britain, Europe, the United States and the Caribbean.

The third good thing about "A Winter Tale" is the film itself. The fact that it looks, with empathy and thoughtfulness, at the violence and pain that has invaded culturally diverse neighborhoods in cities all over the world. And that it does so without the noisy, gory "shoot 'em up" theatrics of Hollywood's brightest and best. The fact that it explores (as much as any 100 minute film can) the inner lives of the men and women who are trapped within their day to day sorrows and joys. No matter what they do, they remain isolated by barriers of racism and poverty from the benefits and rewards that Western societies continue to promise their ever-hopeful immigrants. It is because of these features that audiences in countries all over the world believe that this little Canadian film, set in a downtown Toronto community, speaks directly to them and to their concerns and interests.

The last, but by no means the least, good thing about this film is director Frances-Anne Solomon's idea to use it as a tool for community engagement. At as many screenings as possible, Solomon and some of her cast have invited the audience to stay around and "Talk It Out". Audiences, young and old, of every color, class, caste and creed, in Canada and elsewhere, have taken up this invitation eagerly and added their own real life stories to the poignancy of the movie experience. Thus," A Winter Tale" has fulfilled much more, I am sure, that anybody ever expected.

At one of the first screenings that I attended about a year ago, Solomon thanked Diane Boehm for CHUM TV's providing the original funding to get this project going nearly eight years ago. It always gives me hope to know that there are still Canadian executives who, like Diane Boehm, are prepared to take a chance on Canadian talent that is relatively unknown in our so-called "mainstream", simply because it is Canadian.

A Winter Tale is a beautifully shot feature that highlights men's communication skills regarding gun violence.

Shot on location in Toronto's inner city neighbourhood of Parkdale, this crucially relevant film is all too timely.

We feel the characters viscerally, as if the film were a documentary, but its narrative flow and close camera work draws the audience in to experience the action as if we were part of the circle, face to face with real people with whom we can identify.

Scene by scene, Parkdale comes to life in full spectrum; character is revealed through a grim, suspenseful inevitability.

A Winter Tale does not provide answers to Toronto's gun violence per se, but it does expose the difficulties­ and the necessity­ in ensuring that a dialogue about these issues gets started. Now.

Penn Kemp, pennkemp.ca

Neither chained by realism nor burdened by it, director Frances-Anne Solomon thoughtfully explores the issue of Black-on-Black crime within the Black community, which certainly transcends national boundaries. Nevertheless, in "A Winter Tale"—the opening night presentation for this year's African Diaspora Film Festival in New York City—Solomon remains specific to Black Canadian affairs. Her consistent use of intimate scenes reminds the audience that such a universal theme is grounded in a specific location that is worthy of close-up attention.

The film opens with the death of a young boy as a result of stray gunfire near a drug location. Instead of allowing female characters to pronounce the pain and mournfulness of the moment, Solomon captures the devastated sounds and piercing silence of men's pain, tears and struggles. Solomon does not ignore facial dialogue. In fact, she makes good use of visual resources at the most telling moments. Her thoughtful portrayal of a crime that might only merit a blurb in newspapers is the reason for viewing the film.

Following the death, a young community-builder, Gene Wright, starts a local support group exclusively for men. Wright thinks that this unfortunate homicide will galvanize men across generations to address problems of the community. The first meeting, however, fails expectations. It is only within a local eatery, Miss G's Caribbean Take Away, that the men start to come together. It is in this more intimate setting that the film shows how crimes within the community are intertwined and have lasting effects within the home despite the bantering and play that goes on in the eatery. Amidst the urgent need to address the recent killing, each key male character has difficult issues of home that do not have comforting or identifiable resolutions.

In a question-and-answer session following the premiere screening, some audience members observed that the instructive potential of the film might be lost due to some explicit content. In response, the director upheld the current format of the film in order to show how these explicit images are not holistically demanding. Likewise, I think that although driven by true-to-life narratives, the edgy exactitude of Solomon's cinematography indicates the artist's innovative imagination.

In "A Winter Tale," Solomon along with her talented cast deliver a complex yet common story that respects the audience's interpretative freedom by preserving the dynamic lives of each character. (Courtesy of SeeingBlack.com)