Surviving the pandemic XII: Mikah Styles Mask World, the Human Rights Watch Film Festival and 21 Black Futures

11 Feb 2021 - photos courtesy of publicist

It is minutes from being an entire year that we have lived in semi-isolation under the shadow of the pandemic. We are battered, a little shattered and psychologically bruised, but most of us have survived. And hopefully we all intend to continue to forge forward, looking forward to the day, asap please, that we can feel free to venture out, hug all the loved ones we have been missing, and go back to the theatre.

Ingenuity has been, and will be, the name of the survival strategy. I was delighted and surprised to receive a parcel from Mikah Styles Mask World. Mikah Styles is the stylist to the stars (or those who just want to look like superstars) and his taste and sense of dazzlement is impeccable. That style is being applied to the accessory we all have need of, and hopefully are all wearing, this season and probably next: masks. The mask he sent me is so stunning, so apropos, and so fucking fabulous that my spirits lifted even before I put it on. A simple black mask emblazoned with the Crackpuppy logo. It rocks.

Styles has created literally hundreds of designs featuring other great musical acts (The Ramones, David Bowie, Black Flag, Prince, Iggy Pop), divas and icons (Divine, Gumby, Betty Boop, Keith Haring, Grace Jones), sports teams, patterns and fabrics of all descriptions, camp faux furs and flamingos, and exotic daring fashion statements (ostrich feathers, black beads, silver fringe, gold glitter leopard). There is a mask to fit, or define, any wardrobe. The masks are all triple-layered with "heat blown non woven polypropylene" creating a built in filter sandwiched between 100% cotton. Each mask has soft adjustable ear loops and a metal nose pin for a snug but comfortable fit. And they are priced to move at only $20 with free delivery at etsy.com/ca/shop/MikahStylesMaskWorld

The 18th Annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival Canada has been forced to go online this year and while the big screen will be missed, the screenings/streamings are free. The festival opens with A La Calle which explosively documents Venezuelans taking to the streets en masse in an attempt to free themselves from dictatorship. Wake Up on Mars chronicles an asylum-seeking child awakening from a coma, Love Child explores a forbidden love story between Iranian refugees, and Maxima tackles a gold mining corporation destroying Peruvian highlands. All screenings are followed by discussions with filmmakers, film subjects, Human Rights Watch researchers, or special guests.

The film I screened pre-festival is I Am Samuel and it is almost unbearably tense with the heartbreak and horror eventually turning to hope. Samuel is a gay man living in Nairobi, Kenya. Living precariously: I Am Samuel contains brutal cell phone footage of one his friends being beaten and nearly killed by a mob with castration, as well as general violence, on their mind. Samuel has a small circle of gay friends who meet in cramped apartments to camp it up and support each other. He also has what all gay men, all people, want: Alex, a hunky good-natured man who loves him as much as Samuel loves Alex. But Samuel also has parents, overworked farmers, who he also loves. A love complicated by the parents' religious zealotry and the country's legalized homophobia. The men have extraordinary faces and voices, but the parents steal focus just by being stoic and brooding that "he needs a wife."

My natural inclination to empathize with the persecuted gays. was slowly dissolved by the parents' internal conflicts and the realization of just how hard their life is. A mass baptism is almost as horrific to watch as the gay bashing. The viewer is encouraged to try to be aware of both sides as they struggle to compromise and understand each other. As one queen, one of the few whose faces aren't blurred out for their own safety, says, "They might know the truth, but they're willing to believe the lie." Unspoken is the influence of the camera which subdues the parents' reactions and, I suspect, that of Alex who is fortunately handsome enough to get away with only one monologue. For once I wished that a film was longer, the time frame is compressed and disorienting, and some more back story would  have been helpful. But I Am Samuel is a devastating portrait of coming out under fire, a reminder of how far we've come, what the price we've paid is, and how not everyone has achieved what we now take for granted. Tickets for the 18th Annual Human Rights Watch Festival Canada are at hotdocs.ca. 

Also streaming (and also free) is Obsidian Theatre's 21 Black Futures in celebration of Black History Month. Twenty-one playwrights were commissioned to write monodramas on "What is the future of Blackness?" Twenty-one directors then worked with 21 actors to create 21 short films. Out of the shorts available as screeners, I watched Jah in the Ever-Expanding Song written by Kaie Kellough, directed by d’bi young anitafrika (speaking of sneaking), and performed by Ravyn Wngz. The film is an intoxicating explosion of colour, passion, dance and poetry that mesmerizes and provokes. With contributions from artists Prince Amponsah (Contempt), Peter Fernandes (Rose, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Love and Information, King Lear, Onegin),Virgilia Griffith (Betrayal, Iphigenia and the Furies, Harlem Duet, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Wedding Party, They Say He Fell) Sabryn Rock (Rose, The Royale, Fun Home, Obeah Opera), Philip Akin (Pass Over), and dozens more, 21 Black Futures is well worth sampling and savouring. 21 Black Futures streams on CBC Gem beginning Friday, February 12 with additions on Friday, February 19 and 26. gem.cbc.ca

 Protected and artistically fortified, we can forge forward into year two of the pandemic.