The Montreal International Black Film Festival

The 6th edition promises to be the most impressive and the most mind-blowing in the history of the fest

The 6th edition of the Montreal International Black Film Festival promises to be “the most impressive and the most mind-blowing in the history of the festival.”

The MIBFF is the brain-child of a beautiful woman named Fabienne Colas, a one-time model, actress, and former Miss Haiti born in Port-au-Prince. In the days following last January's earthquake she emerged as a kind of representative of Montreal's Haitian community. Like most in the Haitian diaspora, Fabienne had a story to tell suffused with worry, waiting to hear from family back at home: a father, a mother, a sister. In the end everyone was accounted for and alright. Just over 8 months later, as Haiti continues to dig itself out of the rubble and rebuild, this year's edition of the Montreal International Black Film Festival has some special import.

Kicking off just a couple weeks after Montreal's World Film Festival, and providing film-goers with a Montreal alternative to Toronto's International Film Festival, the Montreal International Black Film Festival runs from September 22 to October 3. International refers not just to the entrants from all over the world, but to the fact this festival puts Montreal in a rather august group of cities like Los Angeles, New York, Milan, and Berlin, all of which boast similar celebrations of Black cinema.

This edition of the MIBFF will feature films from Canada, the US, France, Brazil, Ghana, Mozambique, Haiti, of course, and others. Special events include the Canadian premier of The Silent Army, a Cannes Official Selection from 2009. A programme called Haiti During and After the Earthquake will feature four short films followed by presentations from NGOs that have been helping with Haiti's restructuring. Fade To Black is a conference on the current state of the black film industry. The festival closes with a special screening of a film called Skin, or Couleur de Peau, a multiple award-winning Official Selection at the 2008 TIFF. Director Anthony Fabian will be on hand. See details on programming and locations.

The MIBFF started out life as the Montreal Haitian Film Festival, created by the foundation named for Colas herself, The Fabienne Colas Foundation. The foundation promotes Haitian film, art, and culture, and is also responsible for the first Quebecois Film Festival held in Haiti. If there is anything positive that can possibly have come out of the devastation of the tiny island nation, it is that perhaps the world will look up and take notice of its people, their culture, their art, and through them, to learn of other nations around the world, those nations represented at the Montreal International Black Film Festival, that have a role to play on the world stage.

Dan Laxer is an announcer at Montreal's CJAD Radio, a budding stand-up comedian, and a writer. He is Citeeze's entertainment writer.