Scarborough Strong: Seeds of Scarbz Community Shorts Festival

Featured performer Crystal Mendoza 

If you tell someone you’re from Scarborough, they apologize for your loss, then take a few steps back for their own protection. Many people think Scarborough is a crime-ridden wasteland where every soul unfortunate enough to be here is dying to live anywhere else. These ideas largely stem from Scarborough’s highly racialized population. I have lived here for 16 years, and those misconceptions gloss over the blossoming heart and talent in Toronto’s East End. The abundant community organizations, such as R.I.S.E, Stay Golden Outreach, and, case in point, Friends From The Endz, make tremendous strides in strengthening Scarborough’s residents and image. 

On May 17th, community grassroots production house Friends From The Endz hosted an afternoon community shorts festival at the Malvern Family Resource Centre. The six delightfully inventive films from Scarborough filmmakers, including the prolific Niya Abdullahi, Ella Saini, and Minerva Navasca, show that the beauty within the borough should not be overlooked in favour of crime and poverty statistics. However, the headliner film, Own Your Impact, recognized the importance of identifying why those statistics exist and developing community solutions. The event featured performances from Desiree Southwind and Crystal Mendoza, an art market, a photo booth, and free ice cream.

Heal ‘N Tell Panel

The first two films were from the Heal ‘N Tell program. Three Malvern youth made documentary films over eight weeks under mentorship from Friends From the Endz. The two films screened were The Mendozas by Carmela Mendoza and Double Take by Kayla Smith. These personal documentaries explored the love within Scarborough, both for the region itself and the families that call it home. I wish the screening had been in the evening, as the sunlight through the gymnasium's windows made the films difficult to see. Acoustics left a bit to be desired. The next film was In The Whiteness by Niya Abdullahi, which has screened at the MENA Film Festival. Niya is an accomplished multimedia artist whose films have also screened at TIFF Next Wave and Nuit Blanche Saskatoon. In The Whiteness uses touching spoken word poetry with cultural imagery to create a panoramic image of the Muslim experience. Niya also mentored my introduction to filmmaking. Minerva Navasca’s award-winning film Desync is about a director filming a scene based on personal experiences with her mother. The film pairs directing scenes with flashbacks of the experience to comment on memory and how art imitates, not replicates, life. On having her film screened at Seeds of Scarbz, Minerva says, “I was really surprised and grateful for the community turnout. I felt very humbled to share my works towards the community that inspired it.” Ella Saini’s film Unhome, about Scarborough gentrification, was screened at TIFF Next Wave. Ella’s film hit harder against the accelerating cost-of-living crisis and evokes nostalgia for when life wasn’t so hard. 

Own Your Impact Panel

Headlining film Own Your Impact, directed by Sean Gazmin, is an unflinching look at Scarborough gun violence and community leaders working towards solutions. The film and panellists speak on forgiveness while remembering hope for a better world despite trauma. During the moment of silence for the victims, I considered how opportunities for community storytelling and personal expression could have been the outlet that could have prevented someone from making bad choices. Everybody needs to feel seen, feel heard. There should be more events like Seeds of Scarbz and programs like Heal ‘N Tell because they are life-changing and life-saving to the right individual. Scarborough’s strength has always been the community. Without strong individuals, there is no strong community.