Encounter at Kwacha House - Halifax

Contributor Kass Banning writes, "Encounter at Kwacha House – Halifax is a cinéma vérité snapshot of predominantly young black people in lively debate with community activists about the pressing issues of the day, concerns that shadowed young black Haligonians in the mid-sixties, namely racist employment, education and housing practices.

"Viewed today, Encounter is not simply a fascinating, regionally specific social document of its time; rather CFC'S motivation for the project, the participants' equating segregationist Halifax with the deep South, and Encounter's various receptions – past and present – are variously informed by the subliminal weight of our television archive, specifically the iconography and associations of televised civil rights struggles of the 1960s.

"CFC'S claim that Encounter was a successful catalyst for change cannot be disputed. Following the screenings of Encounter officials were alerted to the potential for unrest in Halifax and short-term opportunities for black youth did emerge forthwith. The fact that these efforts for change could also be attributed to the moral panic that the presence of the Black Panthers engendered in the fall of 1968 is, perhaps unsurprisingly, not on the CFC record."