Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

  Open the Door and Where are all the People by stephen weir If it wasn’t for the model in a sexy Mas costume standing in the window of the Caribbean Tales Film Festival’s Dundas Street West storefront, you wouldn’t know that inside, new movies and short films were being shown in what looks like an old store then a movie theatre. Dubbed the CTFF Hub, the space was used last Thursday night for the Wednesday night launch of the 19th annual Caribbean Tales Film Festival. Judging from the size of the audience, Caribbean Camera wasn’t the only one that had trouble finding the Dundas Street location (near Bathurst). In years past, the opening night of the CTFF was something you wouldn’t miss if you were in the neighborhood of the designated movie theatre or Harbourfront. Loud music, models and TV crews, mainstream media, and even the odd TIFF refugee were present. Big names, from the Mighty Sparrow to Machel, made a point of being out on the street with the rest of us, waiting to get in ...

  Flow Radio. Who? Where? Why? By Stephen Weir A Big swap has just been made between the two commercial Black FM music stations in Toronto. As of Monday, this week radio station   G-98.7   now calls itself FLOW  98.7 FM, Toronto’s Hip Hop R&B.  Also on Monday, radio station   CFXJ  which used to call itself as FLOW, is now   93.5 Today Radio . Confusing? You bet. Radio listeners all across the city have been trying to find their favourite stations and their equality favourite DJs sometimes will little success.  To help clear the air so to speak,  93.5 Today Radio  has been running commercials to tell loyal listeners they have to turn their radios to G 98.7 to catch the sounds of FLO When you do turn that dial, it does play the FLOW style music, but It isn’t the same DJ’s you are used to hearing.  This week the morning hosts at Flow were  Red  and comedian  Jay Martin , long-time voices on G-98.7....

Will Toronto’s establishment be Jolly with that news that In The Black will be a new movie shot in living colour. Filmmaker and head of the CaribbeanTales Film Festival, Francis Anne Solomon announced this week that she has begun work on a feature film based on the book In the Black written by Caribbean Canadian superstar Denham Jolly. News of the proposed film will probably bring both cheers and jeers, depending on what side of the radio dial audiences find themselves. He is best known is best known as the founder of Canada’s first Black radio station, Flow 93.5 and the publisher of the now defunct Contrast newspaper. “In the Black won the Toronto Book Award in 2017. In it he tells the story of his journey from Jamaica to Canada in the 1950s, through his struggles to overcome racism and become an extremely successful businessman, activist, philanthropist, and publisher. When the Camera’s Stephen Weir interviewed Jolly about his book when it was launched, he asked J...