Nadine Valcin is a filmmaker and media artist. She is currently an MFA candidate in the Digital Futures program at OCAD University as well as the Archive/Counter Archive artist-in-residence at Library and Archives Canada.
Nadine is the writer, producer and director of Whitewash, an experimental film that examines slavery in Canada and its omission from the national narrative. Join us on September 15 at 7pm EST for an online screening and livestream talkback with Nadine and DOP Chris Romeike, part of BFF’s Behind the Lens Online Series.
What inspired you to tell this story?
I became interested in the topic of slavery in Canada through the documentary Tropic North (Tropique Nord) featuring our former Governor General, Michaëlle Jean and directed by Jean-Daniel Lafond. In the film about being Black in Montreal, late historian Paul Femiuh Brown mentioned Angélique, an enslaved African who was accused of setting the great 1734 fire that destroyed half the city.
I was shocked since I was born and grew up mainly in Montreal and had never known that slavery existed there. I knew about the Underground Railroad and the Black Loyalists, but not about the Africans who had been enslaved on Canadian soil along with many First Nations’ people. I did some research which led to the making of a short drama about Angélique entitled Fire and Fury. It always stayed in the back of my mind to revisit the topic to make a feature film or a documentary.
Years later, there was a call for an artist’s residency at Osgoode Hall Law School. Since little was written about the enslaved, legal records and court documents are the most telling archives. By that point, I had read The Black Islanders by Jim Hornby about enslaved Africans and their descendants in Prince Edward Island. I proposed to build on his exploration by digging further into the archive and that’s what led to the creation of Whitewash.
Still from Whitewash
What’s the core message that you wanted to convey to your audience through this film?
People still ignore or deny that slavery existed in this country. The descendants of the enslaved are often invisible as they have, for the most part, assimilated by intermarriage with the white population through generations. We look to America for images of what slavery looked like and can’t imagine how it was articulated in a northern context away from plantations. We tend to forget that there were enslaved Africans in the Northern states whose labour created Manhattan and other big cities. I remember the uproar when Michelle Obama mentioned that the White House was built by slaves. In Canada, they were mainly house servants and would cook, clean, build, repair, toil the land and do other types of labour.
The first recorded enslaved African on what is now Canadian soil was Olivier Lejeune who arrived in 1628. It’s time to lay to rest the myth that Black people are recent immigrants to this country. Slavery seems far away, but it is at the root of the systemic racism we experience today and the racial capitalism it grew out of.
Still from Whitewash
What is the best advice you received when you were just starting out?
In the documentary world, people tend to be secretive about their projects because they are afraid that someone will steal their idea, which does, at times, happen. Someone can do a project on the same topic, but it doesn’t mean they will approach or tell the story in the same way. This is also true for narrative films. A few years back, two siblings in Quebec each wrote a book about their childhood and both books were made into two totally different films that came out almost at the same time: It’s Not Me, I Swear (C’est pas moi, je le jure) directed by Philippe Falardeau and Mommy Is at the Hairdresser’s (Maman est chez le coiffeur) by Lea Pool. If you look at both of these films, there is no way you would even see the connection. It’s the same family at the same period seen through totally different viewpoints out of which very different narratives emerge.
All that to say that you shouldn’t be afraid of talking about your projects. It’s important if you’re looking for funding or for crew. You never know who may help you find what you need. It also, ironically, helps protect your idea. The more people know about your project, the more it gets associated with you. Your voice, vision and your perspective are your most important assets as a filmmaker and are what makes any project truly your own. Cultivate and protect them, find allies who align with them, know when to compromise, but also when to stand your ground and fight for them.
What are some of the most important ways people can support your work as well as other work by IBPOC women and non-binary artists?
It’s difficult to get noticed these days as there is so much content available everywhere. I think festivals and public screenings are important, but often cater to the same small audience. Reach out to your friends that aren’t filmmakers, your family and your broader community and get them to attend a screening with you or an event that relates to a topic they would be interested in. People get used to seeing a lot of big Hollywood films. Canadian films can’t compete in terms of marketing budgets, especially not films by IBPOC women and non-binary artists. Word-of-mouth is crucial for those films to find their audience. Share that social media post about an upcoming screening or the link to a film you think other people should see.
Who are some of your favourite filmmakers both emerging and established and/or some work you've been watching recently that you strongly recommend?
Daughters of the Dust by Julie Dash and Moonlight by Barry Jenkins are two of my favourite films of all time. They tell stories about the Black experience in ways that differ from the main Hollywood narrative and push the cinematic language to do so. Daughters of the Dust is a period drama set in the Gullah Island off the coast of Georgia where generations of a Black family discuss an upcoming move to the mainland. Its stunning cinematography by Arthur Jafa was an inspiration for Beyoncé’s Lemonade. Moonlight is also beautiful in the way it lights and captures dark skin as well as its unusual portrayal of Black male vulnerability and queerness. I never get tired of watching them. Another film I cherish is Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders for its poetry, its humanity, and its stunning black and white images of Berlin.
On the documentary side, Hale County This Morning, This Evening by RaMell Ros examines Black lives in Hale County Alabama. It’s a very intimate and nuanced portrait that offers very human insights into the experience of two young men over the course of 5 years.
Catch WHITEWASH as part of BFF’s Behind the Lens Online Screening & Talkback series, screening September 14-16. Join us on Tuesday, September 15th at 7pm EST for a livestream talkback with Nadine and DOP Chris Romeike. Register FREE here.