Director Charles Officer Canada 85 minutes 2017
Documentary, featuring Francine Valentine
Charles Officer's deeply affecting Unarmed Verses — winner of the Best Canadian Feature Documentary prize at Hot Docs — follows Francine Valentine, a sensitive, shy, and fiercely curious adolescent, as she discovers the power of poetry, of music, and of her own voice. Officer spent over a year documenting Francine and her family, and much of his film is devoted to her involvement in a songwriting and recording program run by the grassroots community-building organization Art Starts.
Though clearly gifted, Francine battles both her diffidence and deep-seated insecurities about her identity. (A single, profound shot of her bedroom wall depicts a poster of two girls — European and Asian in appearance — identified through graffiti as "perfect.") Living with her father, elderly grandmother, and brother in a Toronto Community Housing project, Francine is also facing relocation to make way for a new mixed-use development, an index of the city's relentless gentrification and a lack of concern for existing residents. All of this is assembled seamlessly and lyrically by Officer, whose skill is especially evident in his delicate use of sound — as befits his intriguing, young subject.
This feature documentary presents a thoughtful and vivid portrait of a community facing imposed relocation. At the centre of the story is a remarkably astute and luminous 12-year-old black girl whose poignant observations about life, the soul, and the power of art give voice to those rarely heard in society. Unarmed Verses is a cinematic rendering of our universal need for self-expression and belonging.
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