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27 Feb Florence M. Rosalie

Posted at 16:16h Highlighted Member, Members by

As part of February’s #MainArtist and Black History Month, Florence M. Rosalie shares her reflections on photo-stories, a significant medium from her childhood as a vehicle of her heritage, and asks us to reflect on the ways to partake in the creation of memory as artform and social engagement.

Florence is a poet, screenwriter and director who grew up in Montreal. She holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from the Université of Montréal, and made her way into filmmaking through scriptwriting residencies and fiction and non-fiction projects with organizations such as Black on Black Film and Le Centre Phi, Apartment 11, CBC Creator Network and other cultural bodies. Her work generally explores intermediality, the intersections of neo-paganism and feminism, post-colonial feminism and, always, hybrid identity from diasporic perspectives.

In addition to her #MainArtist contribution, Florence joins the Main Film team as coordinator of the 4th edition of the P·R·I-S·M·E training program!

Filmography :
  • SAME OTHER, Documentary, 12 min, 2022
  • PATHS, Poetry film, 9 min, 2021
  • BROUSSE, Experimental, 12 min, 2018

 

Poésie :
  • ONE NIGHT ORGY (OU LA VENGEANCE…), Poetry, MuseMedusa, – 2019
  • JE VEUX LE FEU, LA SAUGE ET TOI, Poetry, Mémoire, –  2019
  • HABITER LE TERRITOIRE. COLLECTIF, Various texts, Presse de l’UdM, – 2019
  • THERE ARE NO FLOWERS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS GARDEN, Poetry, Je Suis Montréal, – 2019
  • AUTOFAIT/SELF-MADE. COLLECTIF, Theater, – Fringe 2021

❝ Among my earliest memories, I see myself curled up in bamboo chairs flipping through Amina magazines (oh, glory and beauty of black women). 

Apart from the models’ perfect lip glosses ( their skintones chemically lightened back then, I know now) and articles on the strong women of Africa, there were the photo-stories. Little slices of melodramatic life in photos that weren’t always well framed, and even less often well lit. A cross between the comic strip and the TV soap opera. So, naturally, the photo story is a very nostalgic form for me. It’s an integral part of the memory I’ve built up of childhood moments during visits to the village. 

I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. About memory. When I was offered this carte blanche, it was the subject that kept running through my head. It seems important to me, given what we’re all going through in this dark period of history.

In the midst of multiple genocides, a frightening economy and a multitude of social and environmental regressions, some tools serve to anchor us. Thanks to them, we hope not to lose sight of reality: Archives, History, Memory. None is an exact science, and it would be a mistake to confuse their distinct natures and functions in society and in our lives. But they do influence each other, and I believe they overlap in our individual lives in one verb: to remember. 
These reflections are at the inception of a slightly personal photo-novel, in tandem with a mini-short film, an equally personal little archive. It’s a diptych that explores the role of memory in the process of hope and the sense of community. It’s important to remember that what happens to another happens to all of us. No matter what your story is, or what narrative of oppression you’re part of, we have to fight against erasure, among other things through memory. ❞

Florence M. Rosalie

#MAINARTIST

Our organization is an artist-run center committed to supporting its community as a whole, without distinction.

Beyond the simple declarations of solidarity against racism following the events of the summer of 2020, but also against more recent racist acts and those that persist historically, it seemed essential to us to offer a place to our members so that they can express their feelings in the face of the discrimination they experience and which could be based on the color of their skin, their origins, their sexual orientation, their gender or a handicap.

We invite them to share their thoughts on this societal drama that constitutes all forms of rejection of the other.

Main Film is an artist-run center committed to supporting its community as a whole, without distinction, in the creation of independent film.

Our 22nd contributing artist is Florence M.Rosalie.

#MainArtist #ArtisteImportant

Because it is artists who carry both the role of representing society and making it evolve.

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