Syncopated Productions

What happens when the largest redevelopment in North America dismantles the place where social housing began? Will the community and its residents ever be the same? Farewell Regent is a 90-minute documentary that captures the Regent Park community of downtown Toronto (the place where social housing began in Canada) in the midst of the largest housing redevelopment project in North America. With this transition, it will go from a site of 100% social housing to a mixed-income community where condo units will outnumber the social housing units 4 to 1. The documentary profiles past and current tenants, city officials, developers and housing advocates to get an inside view of the complex issues, emotions and drama that are involved in such a massive redevelopment.

A Way Out is a documentary about breaking the cycle of poverty in Canadian's oldest and largest "ghetto," Regent Park. In addition to talking about what it is like to grow up poor in North America, it explores the reasons behind one person finding a way out of poverty and others remaining. As a former resident of a low-income community, Christene Browne went back to find out what had happened to some of her old friends. Formal and impromptu interviews are conducted and the community is revealed through footage and stills.

Cassandra Jones is a young woman from Toronto with a very active imagination and unique view of the world. Feeling trapped by life in her low-income community, and unable to relate to her brother Patrick, a petty criminal, or her overly pious mother, Mary, Cassandra decides to leave Toronto. She applies and is accepted into an exchange program between Quebec and West Africa. When she reaches her Quebec destination, a pig farm, she encounters, Sylvie Leblanc, a woman in need of change, her husband, Luc Leblanc, a man afraid of change and Abdoulaye Diallo, her African exchange counter-part, a man who regrets his decision to seek change. Because none of her expectations are met, Cassandra quickly becomes unhappy on the farm. Her presence creates plenty of tension, much of it humorous. A surprising conclusion comes about after a roller-coaster series of events.

John T. Davis (pianist/organist/vocalist) and Jim Heineman (saxophonist) are two Canadian jazzmen who have had to wage the war between the compulsion and the passion that they feel towards their music and the struggle that is involved with trying to make a living in the field of jazz music in Canada. John T. Davis is a Black musician from a poor rural environment. Jim Heineman is a white musician from a white middle-class urban environment.

From Nevis To... is a seven-minute docu-drama that deals with Juliet Jones, a new arrival to Canada. From her arrival to the airport to her ride to the hotel room, many thoughts about her past, present and her future surround her. She tells of what her life was like in Nevis her home country, what she heard about her new country, and the family and lifestyle that she leaves behind. We hear her thoughts in voice over and we see her coming up against and interacting with her new environment, which bears little resemblance to her former home. Canada 1987 7 Minutes, Black and White Docu-Drama English