91ֱ��

Editor's note: This story was published in advance of the 2026 JICS at the Movies event on Jan. 12. This post has been updated with new photos, which have been included below. 

The new year has just arrived, and the 91ֱ�� (OISE) and the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute for Child Study (JICS) are putting the finishing touches on their highly anticipated movie night fundraiser.

The latest JICS at the Movies screening on Jan. 12 features the film Steal Away, the latest full-length feature film from Canadian filmmaker Clement Virgo – whose prior film, Brother, was also featured at a previous JICS at the Movies fundraiser. 

The event brings the community together with critically acclaimed films, and all ticket proceeds support economic diversity and early childhood education at JICS – ensuring that future generations of students continue to benefit from the innovative, inclusive education and research that defines the Lab School. 

A collaboration between Virgo, screenwriter Tamara Faith Berger, and producer Damon D'Oliveira, the film stars Angourie Rice as Fanny, a naive teenager in a purposely ambiguous country, who has her illusions about the world shattered when she forms an intense bond with Cécile (Mallori Johnson), a refugee taken in by her family. The film was adapted from a novel by Karolyn Smardz Frost and also stars Lauren Lee Smith, Idrissa Sanogo, Arnold Pinnock, Hilde Van Mieghem, Nola Elvis Kemper, Denise M'Baye, Gloria Mampuya and Isabelle Menal in supporting roles.

JICS at the Movies brings the film front and centre and will feature a post-film conversation with the filmmaking trio – which will be moderated by Massey College Senior Fellow and U of T faculty, David Chariandy. Before they sit down with the JICS audience, to share insights into their creative process, the trio offered a small taste in the following exchange. 

Your ticket purchase will have a profound impact on supporting economic diversity, helping ensure that students from all financial backgrounds have equal access to JICS — Canada's #1 independent Lab School with a public mission. To learn more about the event and the film, visit this link.

What an extraordinary film! As you bring this to the JICS audience, what do you hope the audience will take away from the film Steal Away?

The audience can take away a lot from the film, and of course anything that they want, but hopefully by the end, a feeling of resolution that justice can be done, that young women can and do escape dangerous situations, and that abusive and dangerous cycles, like white supremacy, can end.  

This story is fearlessly explores themes of racism, sexism, and friendship. As your creative partnership grows, how do you continue to find ways to explore, confront and distill these challenging topics?

We like to provoke, each in our own way, and push the boundaries within stories, and so working on Steal Away together was exciting: to be able to push each other at the same time as pushing the film to sometimes uncomfortable or dangerous places. Also, the real life story of Steal Away which is about the relationship between a privileged white teenager and an enslaved black teenager is difficult and uncomfortable and ultimately that part was important for us to retain and represent, albeit in a new or refracted way. 

On that note, how has the creative partnership between Virgoand D'Oliveira evolved over time? Do you find yourselves finishing each other's sentences? 

We met at the Canadian Film Centre in 1991 and made RUDE, our first feature film together in 1994. Blessed to have Norman Jewison (U of T Grad!) as our mentor, his seminal work that dealt with social issues in the US was inspiration for us. We also share a perspective as immigrant kids who came to Canada from the Caribbean in the late 70’s. That experience of migrating here at a young age has specifically shaped our interest in telling stories of “outsiders” and privileging “maverick" POV's in the work that we’ve created.  Literary adaptations have also been a thrilling challenge for us as filmmakers. Starting with Tamara’s acclaimed feminist novella, LIE WITH ME in 2005 and then following up with THE BOOK OF NEGROES in 2015 and BROTHER in 2022.  We are currently crafting an adaptation of Esi Edugyan’s Booker Prize-nominated, HALF-BLOOD BLUES as our next feature film.  Our work together has also stretched into television and Conquering Lion Pictures is now mentoring and developing material with the next generation of racialized storytellers in Canada. So while we sometimes finish each other’s sentences, we share a vision for the work we make and that has kept our partnership alive over 25+ years!

Let me ask you about adaptation. With a non-fiction piece inspiring this story, how did you balance honouring the original text while putting your own stamp on the story?

The original text, Steal Away Home by Karolyn Smardz-Frost, is an absolute treasure trove of history, notably the sections about travel from Kentucky to Niagara Falls in the 1860s, the Underground Railroad, and the booming metropolitan African Canadian community in Toronto. We wanted, as creators, to make the film its own unique entity, incorporating anachronistic visual elements and Afrofuturism, so there was a ton of narrowing down (choosing what we wanted for this story) and of course riffing and inventing in the world itself. The deep history of this text influenced our desire to talk about the present and to speculate about the future, thinking about what has lingered and endured in young women's lives. So this kind of dovetails into the following question about a sequel. I think a sequel to Steal Away would delve into the second half of the book, which is based upon a stack of letters that exist between Fanny Thruston and Cecilia Reynolds after Cecilia escaped to Canada. Cecilia Reynolds had a fascinating life full of travel so it would be fun to remix that and meld it with our Cécile who we see escape to the mythical North and to imagine her communication with Fanny who stays behind to dismantle the wrath of the family into which she was born.  

Event recap: Photo Highlights

We had a great turnout and amazing engagement for our annual JICS at the Movies. Here are some photos that capture the evening's events. Photos by Perry King and Michelle Bojcun: