Local and political festivals

This year, Montreal saw the success of many arts festivals, a number of which had a distinctly political focus. The Montreal International Black Film Festival held a variety of thought-provoking screenings and panels, welcoming filmmakers like Laurens Grant to share their thoughts on representations of Blackness in media and the current state of anti-racist movements (“Change does not come quietly,” Rosie Long Decter, October 17). The South Asian Film Festival showcased films from various parts of the subcontinent, providing opportunities for bonding among diasporic communities (“Comfort food for the diaspora,” Sarah Shahid, November 21).

The highly anticipated Montreal Biennale attracted a great number of local and international viewers and featured an impressive line of artists, though some found it thematically ambiguous and uncritical (“The grand balcony of capitalism,” Josephine Bird, October 31). The locally produced Art Matters Festival had much more of a clearer focus, choosing to emphasize accessibility to art in the staging of their exhibits (“Accessibility in artistic spaces,” Taylor Mitchell, March 13).