MOVIES

MOVIES Film about identity and racism a five-year ordeal

by Radheyan Simonpillai

Yasmine Mathurin didn’t consider herself a filmmaker when she started making One of Ours. She began the five-year journey to tell a story that felt close to her but was constantly consumed by fear driven by imposter syndrome, which many POC can relate to. How could she picture herself even attempting a career in the film industry while there were so few examples of women who look like her doing it, never mind succeeding at it?

And yet she ended up making one of the year’s best and most urgent films.

Her delicate and emotional documentary, which will be broadcast on CBC Gem in January, follows Haitian-born Josiah Wilson. He was adopted and raised by a Heiltsuk First Nation family but barred from the All Native Basketball Tournament, which pulled the “blood-quantum” card as an excuse.

The film, which is driven by curiosity, empathy, and an active pursuit for healing, covers the emotional aftermath of that exclusion and the attempts to reaffirm community while asking questions about identity, anti-Black racism, blood quantum, trauma, and even homophobia.

That’s a lot packed into an intimate story about a young man who just wanted to play basketball with his people.

One of Ours just happens to live at the intersection of complicated and heavy conversations we have had during the past year regarding “pretendians” and anti-Black racism. Mathurin was still filming and editing while the Michelle Latimer controversy compelled questions about who can claim Indigeneity. And then came the fallout over George Floyd’s murder, which forced communities and institutions to check the blatant and systemic racism in their own ranks.

“I knew the film that I was trying to make,” Mathurin says about the journey she began five years ago. “In the editing process, the stakes got higher. I’m sitting with a film that is holding these themes, handling these things that the world is wrestling with.

“There was so much fear for me to make sure I don’t fuck this up,” Mathurin adds, reminding me that this is her first feature film. “But then I also wanted to have the freedom to fuck up because that’s how I learn. I was praying for the grace of that.”

On a Zoom call, Mathurin can laugh and smile about some of the more intense moments of making One of Ours. But the weight of the story is still there in her voice as she processes the memories. You can feel the care she took in slowly working her way through it, not just for the sake of making a powerful film, which One of Ours is, but to do right by Wilson and his family and others affected by questions regarding anti-Black racism, Indigeneity, and identity.

She has a personal connection to the story. Mathurin knew the Wilson family from her teen years living in Calgary and connecting with the Haitian community there. But there’s also a subjective connection she has to a story about trying to place your identity and belong somewhere.

Mathurin is a Black woman who has moved around a lot. She has repeatedly had to question whether she was Haitian enough or Canadian enough. Telling Wilson’s story was a way to work through her own feelings while also discovering herself as a storyteller, completing a rather circuitous and somewhat unintentional journey toward becoming a filmmaker. Mathurin didn’t really figure out that she was one until Wilson’s story came calling.

“I can call myself a filmmaker… I think,” she says, almost as if asking a question. “I think now I will.”

Mathurin discovered Wilson’s story on Facebook while she was living in Toronto. The news of his exclusion from the All Native Basketball Tournament was popping up on her feed and helping her discover things she never knew about the kids she hung out with in Calgary. “Josiah’s Indigeneity was invisible to me as a kid,” says Mathurin, who saw all these headlines posing big questions about identity on the shoulders of her friend, who just wanted to play basketball. “It felt like a lot. He was 22 at the time.”

After grappling a little with the story, Mathurin decided to pursue it. By this time, she had already worked an internship at CBC and even produced a couple of long-form radio documentaries. She intended to make a short film, but the story kept getting bigger

Yasmine Mathurin took five years to make One of Ours, a doc about a Black child adopted by an Indigenous family. Photo by Samuel Engelking.

and would lead her to making her first feature as a sort of trial by fire, with the support of the DOC Breakthrough program. This was going to be her film school.

There was so much fear for me to make sure I don’t fuck this up.

– Filmmaker Yasmine Mathurin

But the challenge of telling Wilson’s story goes beyond Mathurin’s own relative rawness to filmmaking. Wilson himself wasn’t exactly keen to tell his story. He didn’t even return Mathurin’s calls until his parents told him to. And his reluctance is there on-screen, which is part of what makes the film so fascinating. He’s guarded, often trying not to appear too pressed about the events unfolding around him, which says a lot about how he’s feeling.

“His reluctance is this kind of armour,” Mathurin says. “If you’re hurt, you don’t want to talk about the wound. I’m asking him to poke a wound. And that’s a tall order.

“I knew I had to earn my trust with him,” she adds, explaining how much time she spent just hanging out with Wilson and his friends. “I knew in wanting to tell a story about healing and digging into these questions, he may not necessarily be comfortable answering or even know how to answer. It would take time. Also, we might not get there.”

Wilson’s family does a lot of the talking in One of Ours, explaining the circumstances around Josiah’s adoption as a baby, his closeness to his late Indigenous grandfather, and his upbringing as part of the Heiltsuk First Nation. The family members lead a discussion on what it means to be Indigenous—beyond a status card and blood quantum. They explain the politics around the basketball tournament and its refusal to apologize for an act of discrimination. And they reveal other family dramas—particularly, a divorce and a member of the family coming out— that would cumulatively make Josiah feel like his world was unravelling, leaving him questioning who he is and where he fits.

“There’s a lot that he’s still processing and sitting in his own feelings about,” Mathurin says.

According to Mathurin, Wilson loves the film, though he got to that feeling with some work. He learned a lot about himself when seeing the first cut, but he also felt uneasy about aspects of it. But she adds that his family members’ reactions gave him comfort, especially since they learned a lot about each other. Mathurin was able to have conversations with each of them that they couldn’t have with each other.

“Now, at the stage where people have seen the film and have responded to him, there’s a levity to how he’s sitting in his own story that I don’t think he really had before. I feel that’s such a gift.” g