Groundbreaking documentary Home Feeling gave an over-policed Black community the chance to be heard

This is part of a series of essays in response to our recent project CBC Arts Presents: The 50 Greatest Films Directed by Canadians. We asked writers to choose a Canadian-directed film that they believe should have been included — particularly ones that fill the representational gaps in Canada's film history — and tell us why it deserves to be there.

There's a resonant steel pan sequence in Home Feeling: Struggle for a Community that ranks among the most powerful scenes in Canadian film.

The 1983 documentary, written and directed by Jennifer Hodge de Silva (then known as Jennifer Hodge) with additional direction from Roger McTair, is about tensions between police and residents in the Jane and Finch area. We see the young performers play to a crowd gathered at the local shopping mall. They're under the watchful eye of several constables — a moment of joy rendered uneasy.

The steel pan band kicks off the show with their take on "Amazing Grace," the gospel hymn originally written by slave trader-turned-abolitionist John Newton, before transitioning to more upbeat fare. There's a plastic palm tree among the décor that the film thoughtfully closes in on, as if considering how the tree is giving an artificial sense of home for West Indian immigrants who tend to feel vulnerable in these spaces. As the pan music and festivities continue, the film watches over the lurking police officers, who we see throughout the film approaching every Black gathering with suspicion. Home Feeling flips that suspicious gaze right back at them. 

Today, with the advent of smartphones, turning the camera on police is the go-to safety measure for people who feel terrorized by law enforcement. Consider then what an incredibly powerful gesture it was when Hodge did it 40 years ago. 

Despite the film's rich and grainy 16mm visuals, Home Feeling's aesthetic choices are discussed less often than its historical significance — it was one of the first films directed by a Black Canadian woman — and ceaseless relevance today. Hodge de Silva empathetically engages in a conversation about anti-Black racism and over-policing that hasn't aged one bit.

In its opening moments, Hodge de Silva — who passed from cancer at 38 — captures the tension with impressive clarity. A middle-aged resident is exploding with anger, feeling violated by police officers who, after seeing his nephew sitting in his parked van, had searched the vehicle because they suspected it might have been stolen. One of the officers tries to gently explain to the man that he should instead be grateful that they are out and about trying to protect his property. The officer sounds as well-meaning as someone completely unaware of his entitlement — and the white saviour complex driving him — would sound. He also conveniently ignores that the vehicle was never reported stolen.

Home Feeling weaves together intimate perspectives for a macro look at how cities like Toronto displace its most vulnerable residents out of sight — far from the core — where they battle poverty, stigma, and a judicial system bent on grinding them down. The movie is also a collection of portraits. Activists and residents from the community invite the cameras into their homes, workplaces, and even job searches, trusting Hodge de Silva to see them in ways the police often don't.

Among them is Frederick Ford, a Guyanese immigrant who counts himself lucky for having a steady job — a job he almost loses after police harass him while he's playing a game of pinball, alleging that he spit on them and charging him with assault. During trial, the judge swiftly handed down a 30-day sentence, refusing to listen to Ford's attorneys when they pleaded that the jail time would compromise his employment and clean record. According to the narration by Charmaine Edmead and Ford's family, the judge said he was going to make an example out of the alleged first-time offender. While speaking to the cameras in the East Detention Centre, Ford simply resigns himself to leaving Jane and Finch in hopes of escaping people's perceptions of its residents.

Greg Bob, a Grenadian immigrant, gives the film its title, describing living among the Black community in Jane and Finch as giving that "home feeling." He talks about life in the West Indies, where people would hang outdoors on the corners after work. But such congregations in the Jane and Finch area would be disrupted by officers who would come tell them to "move along." Bob was wrongfully arrested by officers in a neighbourhood drug sweep and subsequently charged the police force with assault.

One of the most devastating testimonials comes from Rosemary Brown, a mother who immigrated to Canada from Barbados without her children. After reuniting with her children in Toronto, she copes with the gap between her dreams and reality, the emotional distance between herself and the kids she hasn't been with for years, and the severe depression that's been taking hold of her.

Brown's experience resists the self-defeating concept that Black people must be strong and resilient. (You could go all the way back to slavery to see how oppressive societies would rather celebrate resilience than correct the burden they put on Black communities.) But her story, like so many in Home Feeling, is also one of self-empowerment. She describes attending group therapy and sharing her experience with others in the community who she discovers are dealing with the same struggles and are ready to rally together.

Home Feeling first screened publicly to Jane and Finch residents on July 20, 1983 at the Yorkwood Public Library, according to NOW Magazine's cover story with Hodge de Silva that year. As you might expect, there were a handful of police officers monitoring the 200 community members who saw their experiences reflected back at them. NOW's Ralph Benmergui reports that Home Feeling was condemned by police and some local politicians for "fanning the flames." Meanwhile, it inspired further organization and activism among the community, who did not see themselves as victims in its narrative.

"This is the people's side of the story, the story of those who are never heard and don't have access to the media," Hodge de Silva told NOW's Stephen Dale. "When the police want publicity, they call the papers. These people can't do that."

"[The film] made people feel that they had some sort of power — that somebody's listening."

Watch Home Feeling: Struggle for a Community for free via the NFB.