It’s no secret that D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation is one of the most racist films ever made — a declaration not lost on Toronto audiences when it premiered at the  Royal Alexandra Theatre on September 20, 1915. The film, a revisionist account of the American Civil War, the Reconstruction period that followed and the creation of the Ku Klux Klan — all of which vilified the African-American population — played at Bell Lightbox earlier this week as part of their Essential Cinema programme. When presented in its proper context — the Lightbox screening was accompanied by DJ Spooky‘s … Continue reading The Birth of a Nation: How ugliness changed Toronto’s movie-going landscape