Celebrating Black Futures | Film Screening: When Morning Comes

This February, the Gallery has partnered with the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) to present Celebrating Black Futures, a series of film screenings that speak to the future of Black and African cinema. Selected by Kika Memeh, Public Programs Assistant at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and Tom Charity, VIFF Centre Year-Round Programmer, each film presents a contemporary snapshot of the multilateral nature of African, African American, Caribbean and Black Canadian culture and cinema. Find out more »

This fourth and final screening of the series will present Kelly Fyffe-Marshall’s When Morning Comes (2023). The film tells the story of nine-year-old boy Jamal, who is getting bullied at school, and his widowed mother, Neesha, who decides she needs to get him out of Jamaica and educated in Canada with his grandmother. This is a small movie, perhaps, but it offers a fresh reverse angle on the story of immigration. 

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Writer-director Kelly Fyffe-Marshall paints such a warm, authentic, loving picture of Jamaica in When Morning Comes, a film about a young boy named Jamal, who has just been suspended from elementary school following an altercation. His widowed mother, Neesha, is so incensed she can’t hear Jamal’s protestations of innocence. She’s afraid this may become a habit. Convinced that her mother, who lives in Canada, may be able to provide more opportunities for a rambunctious, strong-willed kid like Jamal, she hatches a life-changing plan. Terrified, Jamal runs off, spending the next few days living with his best friend, Deshane, the girl he’s crushing on, and substitute father figures, while also visiting the grave of his beloved father. His adventures seem bucolic, but percolating underneath is a rueful awareness that even when people believe they are doing the right thing, it can feel wrong. 

Runtime: 87 minutes  

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