Filmmaker and director Karen Chapman stands in Chive Plant Studio in Toronto on March 25.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
There is an undeniable warmth of spirit in Toronto-based director Karen Chapman’s debut feature film, Village Keeper. A feat of first-time filmmaking, the movie stars Olunike Adeliyi (CBC’s The Porter, Ron Dias’s Morningside) as Beverly-Jean, an overworked nurse struggling to provide for her family while dealing – or rather, not dealing – with the spectres of intergenerational violence that disquiet both their home and community.
Featuring a mix of actors and non-actors (a choice drawn from Chapman’s background in documentary filmmaking), Village Keeper builds out an evocative image and soundscape of working-class Black life in Toronto. Its score, composed by self-taught pianist Dalton Tennant, is accompanied by music from Regent Park poet and rapper Mustafa, Jamaican-Canadian singer Kirk Everton, and Nigerian-Canadian singer-songwriter Zenesoul, just to name a sampling of the film’s Toronto-based creative roster.
In this vein, Village Keeper feels like a film wholly born from community and Chapman was determined to create a new model of possibility in terms of what filmmaking and creative collaboration might look like. Notably, Jamaican-Canadian poet and activist d’bi.young anitafrika (who also has a role in the film) provided her knowledge and services as a somatic care practitioner to the film’s cast and crew throughout (and after) shooting. Indeed, Chapman’s reparative approach to the process of filmmaking feels motivated by the same kind of care that underscores her camera eye as a humanist and compassionate observer of life.
Speaking with The Globe and Mail ahead of Village Keeper’s theatrical release this Friday, Chapman shared more about the process of making her debut feature, the politics of space and community in Toronto, and the importance of naming our histories with specificity and care.
How did Village Keeper, as a story, begin for you?
It’s a story I’ve been thinking about for a long time and one that was never far away from me in terms of seeing the lives of the women in my own life. Coming from documentary filmmaking, there’s always a narrative path that you’re following, in a sense, and I thought it would be really cool if I could create my own. It was important for me to tell a story – one that some might see as small – in a cinematic way where we are able to see the way the world moves around them. The idea that we could give this particular woman that’s lived this particular experience – one that’s actually not particular at all – the main stage in a movie felt hard. It just felt impossible. And I’m drawn to doing things that feel impossible and hard.
What were your inspirations in terms of the film’s visual world?
I grew up at Jane and Finch, but our family moved all around the city and the imagery of the film reflects that. With the imagery of the film, it was important to me to pose questions about our city and its relationship to class. The reality of Toronto is that it isn’t this utopia – it’s a place where access to resources isn’t equal but, instead, determined by your postal code. The libraries downtown don’t offer the same thing as the libraries in Malvern, for example. So, who gets to live in a home? Who gets to live in a community? These are the kinds of, not just political, but also personal questions that I wanted to ask with the film.
What was motivating you in terms of stewarding this representation of working-class Black women across generations?
It felt revolutionary and important to highlight the kind of person that most folks would walk past on the subway without thinking about [them]. Everyone has their own narrative and Beverly-Jean’s is one that deserves to be told – not just in terms of her surviving abuse, but everything in between. I was really excited to explore both sides of that experience at the same time: even on the worst day, the sun still comes out, you know? It was beautiful to see that unfold.
I was also thinking about the cultures of silence and shame often created within our families. I really wanted to talk about them and to see what would happen. The idea of saying “the thing” out loud and calling it out – without the quest for an answer – is a big space of possibility.
d’bi.young anitafrika was on set providing body-based therapy for the crew; what was that experience like?
d’bi was definitely a grounding force not just in front of the camera, but also in terms of how we created safe spaces for the people that we were working with. I wanted to set a standard of, not just productivity, but respect and kindness. The film was kind of an experiment to see if that could be done and I’m so proud of all of us because I think we accomplished that.
To have d’bi come in and offer us resources and supports to use while we were filming – as well as after – helped create a space where folks felt their ideas and feelings could be heard. She was also a grounding force for me in terms of making sure I was taking time for myself – something I often forget to do. A lot of the folks we were working with also had lived some of the experiences the film explores in some way or another, so it was important to take care of them.
There’s a long onscreen history of dramatic films that take place in majority Black low-income or public housing neighbourhoods that are often retraumatizing for Black audiences to watch. Village Keeper does an amazing job of not just witnessing the reality of Beverly-Jean and her family’s experience, but also opening up space to witness the joys and freedoms of the everyday. What was your thinking in terms of sharing that reality?
I’m still learning. A lot of what I’m learning is about the image of what you’re trying to say as a filmmaker, but also, how concise you can say it. I think it’s not necessarily the rupture – the violent thing that happens – that needs to be centred, but everything else around it. I wanted to see if we could explore that space of experience: how much you’ve changed and calloused or grown softer or grown sharper. That’s more fascinating to me because that’s what’s relatable – that journey of not always being okay and I wanted that to feel at least seen, if not felt here.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
