Montreal International Black Film Festival – Spike Lee, the acclaimed director who recently won the Grand Prix du Jury for his latest feature BlackkKlansman, is about to make his third appearance at the Montreal International Black Film Festival, in which its 14th edition will run from September 25 to 30.
Lee, who is best known for such other award-winning films as She’s Gotta Have It, Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever and Malcolm X, will be appearing at the Imperial Cinema on September 26, in An Intimate Evening with Spike Lee, where he will discuss his long career as a film director, writer, actor and producer, as well as offering advice to aspiring filmmakers, and his take on current socio-economic issues of the day and the state of diversity in the film industry. Tickets for this intimate conversation with Spike Lee is $35, or $150 that includes a VIP meet & greet and cocktail reception.
This year’s edition of the Montreal International Black Film Festival, which is created by the Fabienne Colas Foundation and presented by Quebecor, will feature a diverse line-up of 72 films from 25 countries throughout the festival’s six-day period, which will highlight the stories and events that have challenged the conventional, left a distinctive mark on our life and times, and changed how we view the world.
It begins on September 25 with the screening of the festival’s opening film Obey at the Imperial. The film is a tragic love story that focuses on an oppressed 19-year-old boy who grows up with an alcoholic mother, and then falls in love with a beautiful blond girl, which ends up being a toxic relationship. The festival ends on September 30 with the screening of Dead Woman Walking (which will also take place at the Imperial) tells the stories of the final days of a group of women who are inmates in a prison’s death row, as they await their respective executions.
In between, the festival will also its first-ever kids program, the MIBFF Black Market, and screenings of a wide variety of feature, id-length and short films, as well as documentaries, that will take place at four venues in the downtown core: the Imperial Cinema on Bleury, the Cinematheque Quebecoise (335 de Maisonneuve Blvd. E.), Cinema du Parc (3575 avenue du Parc) and L’Inis (301 de Maisonneuve Blvd. E.). Ticket prices are $12 for individual screenings, $25 for the opening film, $20 for the closing film and $6 (kids 12 years of age and under) and $12 (adults) for the kids program.
For more information, go to www.MontrealBlackFilm.com.
Feature image: Spike Lee with Fabienne Colas (Mtltimes.ca file photo)
