NiaFlix: A Mother Apart

NiaFlix: A Night at the Centre is a monthly movie night series that centers movies, films and black storytellers that showcase Black Artistic Expression. Featuring carefully curated films by filmmaker Kourtney Jackson, each night will transport you through stories that blend nostalgia, art, and culture, giving you that cozy Netflix vibe right at Nia Centre!

On Thursday March 27th, 2025, we will be screening A Mother Apart.

Directed by Laurie Townshend and produced by Alison Duke, A Mother Apart is an emotionally sweeping tale of healing and forgiveness. This film accompanies powerhouse Jamaican-American poet and LGBTQ+ activist Staceyann Chin as she re-imagines the essential art of mothering—having been abandoned by her own mother.

This screening will be accompanied by a talkback with Laurie Townshend.

Snacks and light refreshments will be made available.

About the Series Curator

Kourtney Jackson

Kourtney Jackson is a Toronto-based filmmaker and lens-based artist. Her artistic practice employs hybridized and experimental forms of storytelling that permeate interiorities of Black queer womanhood.

In lieu of “representation” as a means for legibility, her work endeavours toward a repatriation of the self through somatic, spiritual, and ecological sensibilities. Her award-winning films have screened locally and internationally at festivals including TIFF Next Wave (Toronto), BlackStar Film Festival (Philadelphia), Sundance Film Festival, Ignite x Adobe (Utah), and the Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal (Montréal).

About the Filmmaker

Laurie Townshend

Laurie Townshend is a writer, director, and educator from Toronto, Canada. Raised by a Jamaican mother—the family’s eloquent griot—she learned early on that stories shape us as much as we shape them. Her work explores human acts of courage that spark quiet revolutions, including The Railpath Hero (2013) and Charley (2016), a documentary linking civil rights activist Charles Roach to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Her latest feature, A Mother Apart (Top 3 Audience Favourite, HotDocs ‘24; Best First Feature, Best Canadian Feature, Audience Award, Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival ‘24), follows acclaimed poet-performer Staceyann Chin as she confronts the trauma of maternal abandonment and its impact on raising her own daughter. Laurie was recently selected for UnionDocs’ Pod Pod intensive to develop an audio project that continues her exploration of identity, resilience, and the ways human connection shapes our lives.

This program was funded in part by the Government of Canada.