Latest news with #VillageKeeper
CBC
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Karen Chapman's debut film Village Keeper is a mother's tale of grief, survival and healing
In a Q interview, the Canadian filmmaker discusses the stigmas she aimed to challenge with her new movie CBC Arts · In Karen Chapman's debut feature film, Village Keeper, a grieving single mother who's grappling with violence in her past learns how to put herself first. Chapman sits down with guest host Garvia Bailey to talk about the stigmas and stereotypes she aimed to challenge with this film, how she made Village Keeper in only 12 days while eight months pregnant, and why she feels that what happens behind the camera shows up on screen. WATCH | Official trailer for Village Keeper:
CBC
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Is Village Keeper an instant Canadian film classic?
Village Keeper is a new Canadian film that follows a woman named Jean, played by Olunike Adeliyi, as she navigates motherhood and trauma while trying to break an intergenerational cycle of domestic abuse within her family. It's the feature directorial debut by Canadian filmmaker Karen Chapman, and it was made in only 12 days while Chapman was eight months pregnant. The film is now nominated for seven Canadian Screen Awards, including best motion picture and best original screenplay. Today on Commotion, film critic Sarah-Tai Black joins host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss the unique ways in which the film addresses its themes. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: What should people know about the story being told in this movie? Sarah-Tai: Village Keeper is a film that really knows that talking about intimate partner violence and talking about abuse outside of some of the more exploitative narratives that we're more used to on-screen can, ironically, sometimes be more uncomfortable than those actual reductive depictions of abuse and harm. And I think that is especially true when it comes to witnessing that happen to women and girls on-screen, and especially when it's Black women and girls. I think it's also a film about the weight of the past, and the present and the future of not just violence, but intergenerational discord and healing. It's also about the process of feeling at home — not just in your body, not just your spirit, but where you literally live, you know? I think that a lot of narratives that focus on healing, like Village Keeper does, also kind of have this expectation of upward mobility as part of that journey. So to see a film that focuses on healing, specifically on a family that lives in a lower-income, working class neighborhood like Lawrence Heights, without having the narrative imperative of making them leave that place, of having that community be home, of being this interconnected community, is really lovely. It's just a lovely film. Can't recommend it enough. Elamin: Well, the big conversation I've been hearing has been about the performance of Olunike Adeliyi. People might know her from The Porter, from The Fire Inside, more recently from Morningside. She plays Jean. She's nominated for performance in a leading role [at the Canadian Screen Awards]. How was she in this role? Sarah-Tai: She's so amazing. I've had the privilege of engaging with this film in different ways a few times since it first came out, even on the festival circuit. And being able to watch her performance several times, she just has such a commanding presence, but also a grace to this role of Jean that is just so emblematic of so many working class, racialized women in Toronto and places like it. The film opens with this scene of her commuting to work on the TTC, which so many of us do every day, several times a day. And it's this really beautiful, poetic opening scene that takes this incredibly ordinary moment of labour, that labour that's so often invisible, and it takes the time and the care to really find the shapes and the contours and the beauty of that very everyday, super regular-degular working class experience of just getting to your job to kind of get by. Elamin: Out of the five nominees for performance in a supporting role, three of them are for this film, which is quite an incredible haul. You mentioned this movie is dealing with themes like loss, survival, domestic abuse and intergenerational trauma. Was there a theme that really resonated with you? Sarah-Tai: Yeah. I think, first of all, pack your tissues. Every time I watch this, I just cry and cry — but in this great release kind of way. Because I think for me, what's most impactful about Village Keeper is experiencing it in relation to this long on-screen history of racialized women, and in this case specifically Black women, being portrayed as caretakers and carers. There is, of course, a truth in that for many of us. But at the same time, a lot of those representations are really reductive, or even unproductive or harmful, and they've continued to kind of sustain themselves over time. So with Village Keeper, it's just such a humanist film in the way that it witnesses the truth of that reality, while also kind of pushing back against that stereotype or that expectation of Black women giving themselves over wholly at the expense of themselves, you know? This innate demand for Black women to take part in their own disposability.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Citytv's ‘Law & Order Toronto' leads Canadian Screen Award nominations with 20 nods
TORONTO — A Toronto-set "Law & Order" spinoff that takes viewers on a twisty crime-solving ride by reimagining some of the city's most infamous cases is the leading nominee at this year's Canadian Screen Awards. Citytv's 'Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent' got the most nominations overall with 20, including one for best drama series, acting nominations for leads Kathleen Munroe and Aden Young, and a supporting acting nod for Karen Robinson. The haul means the show comes in third for most TV nominations since the Screen Awards were established 13 years ago, behind only 'Schitt's Creek,' which nabbed 26 nominations in 2020, and 21 nominations in 2021. Meanwhile, the Winnipeg-set absurdist dramedy 'Universal Language' leads the film races with 13 nominations, including for best film, best directing and best original screenplay. The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television announced nominees in 149 film, television, and digital media categories. The Screen Awards will be handed out at five ceremonies in Toronto from May 30 to June 1, culminating in a gala hosted by comic Lisa Gilroy and set to stream live on CBC Gem. Matthew Rankin's 'Universal Language' tops the film contenders a month after winning a $50,000 prize from the Toronto Film Critics Association. Its Screen Award tally makes it the third-most nominated film ever, tying with 'Mommy' in 2015. It competes for the best film trophy against 'The Apprentice,' 'Darkest Miriam,' 'Gamma Rays,' 'Village Keeper' and 'Who Do I Belong To.' 'Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent' will vie for best drama series against CBC's 'Allegiance' and 'Bones of Crows,' Hollywood Suite's 'Potluck Ladies' and CTV's 'Sight Unseen.' Three TV series tied with 12 nominations: CTV's sitcom 'Children Ruin Everything,' CBC's Indigenous historical drama 'Bones of Crows' and family comedy 'Run the Burbs.' Meanwhile, CBC's sports coverage of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics got 11 nominations and 'The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal' from Amazon Prime Video Canada is this year's most nominated documentary series with seven. The best comedy series race is between CBC's 'One More Time,' CTV's 'Children Ruin Everything,' Crave's 'Late Bloomer' and 'The Office Movers,' and Crave/APTN's 'Don't Even.' Other leading film nominees announced Wednesday include David Cronenberg's 'The Shrouds' with nine, and Sam McGlynn's 'Deaner '89' and Karen Chapman's 'Village Keeper,' which each nabbed seven. Last year's Screen Awards were hosted by Canadian comic Mae Martin, who hosted a gala in front of an audience in Toronto, which was then whittled down to an hour-long special that aired hours after the event on CBC and CBC Gem. _ Online: This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 26, 2025. The Canadian Press
