A Winter Tale

The Reel World Film Festival in April opened with a gala performance of the made in Canada film A Winter Tale. It won the award for best Canadian feature at the festival which included films from a number of countries.

It's the work of British-born, Trinidad raised Frances-Anne Solomon whose experience embraces award winning feature films and television productions for the BBC.

Leonie Forbes, Jamaica's "first lady of film" won the festival's award of excellence for her telling performance as Miss G, the proprietor of a small restaurant in Toronto's Parkdale district, where the entire tale is set during bleak winter time.

After a ten-year-old boy is shot by a stray bullet a social worker tries to form a black men's support group seeking a witness to the crime. But it's an uphill struggle against fear of retribution from neighborhood, drug dealing gangs is portrayed. A Winter Tale offers a searching perspective on the timely issues of gun violence, set against the backdrop of a Caribbean community's hopes and tribulations. The film, although fictional is directed and filmed with a documentary-like sense of realism. It reminds one how shallow are the "reality" TV shows when art can imitate life in such a telling fashion.

At present, I can't tell you where this moving film might be shown theatrically, but please watch out for A Winter Tale.