"Colin in Black and White"

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

MALTI SAHAI

Ava DuVernay's limited series chronicles that inspired activist and athlete Colin Kaepernick to risk his livelihood in support of civil rights.

When San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick silently took a knee during the US national anthem in 2016, he risked his future as a professional athlete to protest police violence against Black Americans. The response divided a nation.

Former president Donald Trump, current NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and team owners branded him un-American. Civil rights activist Harry Edwards, filmmaker Ava DuVernay (When They See Us), and fellow Black athletes labelled him an activist. Kaepernick's courageous act exposed the racism embedded in professional sports. He never started another game in the NFL, and was quietly blacklisted by every team in the league for inciting Black athletes to rebel against white owners and executives.

Five years on, Kaepernick and DuVernay brought his adolescent awakening to audiences with this limited series, co-written and co-executive produced by Michael Starrbury (When They See Us). A young Colin, played by Jaden Michael (Wonderstruck, The Get Down), navigates the insecurities, complexities, and revelations he experiences growing up as a biracial kid with adopted parents (played by Mary-Louise Parker and Nick Offerman) in a predominantly white neighbourhood in California.

DuVernay and Starrbury deliver the story through Kaepernick's narration while he watches his past play out in front of him. Throughout the series, documentary and re-enactments provide more context and give credit to figures who inspired Kaepernick's system of beliefs, including Allen Iverson, DJ Kool Herc, and Kelley Williams-Bolar.

The storytelling is innovative, with touches of humour, adversity, and social contextualisation. In an era when even icons can be forgotten in a 24-hour news cycle, DuVernay, Kaepernick, and Starrbury's series will ensure the world appreciates and remembers the sacrifice a young Kaepernick made in the fight for racial equality.

Roger Ebert famously said, "I have been given only a few filmgoing experiences in my life to equal the first time I saw 'Do the Right Thing.' Most movies remain up there on the screen. Only a few penetrate your soul." Spike Lee's,'Do The Right Thing', is still admirable for the way it attempts to capture the complexities and tensions around race. "Colin in Black and White," series, is an equally impactful expose of the racism embedded in professional sports. Central to both stories is the racial tensions in the environment in which the stories play out.

There are parallels between these movies and the 'Black Lives Matter' protests today, where people standing up to racial and social injustice are met with violence from police officers.

Happily TIFF on September 7 announced the newly created "Every Story,' fund to support and celebrate film's under-represented voices and audiences. This fund represents a tangible commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in film and expands upon TIFF's integrated initiative in support of women in film, Share Her Journey. Through this fund,TIFF is committed to expanding its diversity and inclusion efforts by upholding three primary pillars: challenging the Status quo; celebrating diverse storytellers and audiences; and creating opportunities for creators who are Black, Indigenous, people of color, and/or 2SLGBQ+ and other equity-seeking creators. This is the beginning of a journey to highlight the stories that may have previously been untold and address the reasons for their erasure.

"The tides have turned. Now is the time to re-examine what inclusion means and how it manifests in our industry," said Joana Vincent, TIFF Executive Director and Co-Head.

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