VIDEO: Harry Jerome remembered in VIFF film

Canadian filmmaker Charles Officer says he knew very little about the great black athlete Harry Jerome when the National Film Board approached him to make a documentary.

Vancouver-based Jerome, who represented Canada in three summer Olympics in the 1960s, set seven world records in sprinting, including running 100 metres in 10.0 seconds.

In the film Mighty Jerome, which makes its debut this week at the Vancouver International Film Festival, Officer explored Jerome's era and the racism he met even as a Canadian competing at an elite level for his country.

"His story did not get the attention he deserved," Officer tells CBC News. "He was a black man at a time when the black poor were looked on in a specific way."

Officer is a former pro hockey player, an actor and maker of feature film Nurse. Fighter. Boy.