Alison Duke on Bringing Black Stories to Life
Through perseverance, talent, and a commitment to telling stories that matter, Alison Duke has established herself as one of the country’s most important documentary filmmakers and producers. The native of Scarborough, Ontario, Duke threw herself into filmmaking beginning her career as a music video and TV producer. She made her directorial debut with Raisin’ Kane: a rapumentary (2001), about her hip-hop artist brother. In 2018 she joined forces with filmmaker Ngardy Conteh George to form OYA Media Group, with the focus on telling socially relevant, life-changing stories that amplify Black experiences.
Now & Next caught up with Duke to chat about her path to becoming a filmmaker, the formation of OYA and the joy of mentoring young Black creatives who are making a mark in Canadian film and television.
Tell me about your beginnings. Growing up, was filmmaking something you always wanted to do?
My parents immigrated to Canada in the sixties. They had five kids; my mom divorced him and took all of us. We ended up living in public housing in Scarborough. It was a very diverse community with a lot of creativity around. Walking out my front door you had people singing on the street corner, doing artistic stuff and I was really curious. ‘What are all these people doing? Why are they interested in the arts so much?’
Did you watch many films growing up?
Oh, yes. You know, I was a fan of television, and from the time you put me in front of a television set, I was into it. I was into all the movies, the classics, the musicals, the more modern stuff. I just remember loving Hitchcock and spending my Sunday afternoons when they had those long movies on and watching them all.
Yet you decided to study kinesiology at the University of Windsor.
Yeah, I was kind of living two lives, including as a queer person. I went to the University of Windsor because I was really interested in pursuing a career in the sports sciences. I did my masters in kinesiology, and I got jobs as a kinesiologist and I did well, I was making money. But I always remembered writing poetry and stories, and I think the film world, the storytelling world, was calling me. A friend of mine who was in the film industry asked me to produce a music video for them and that was it. I fell in love with it, and I never stopped.
You spent years working as a TV and documentary producer learning on the job.
Right. While I was being courageous and bold and producing I was learning stuff on the side. It was a long haul of taking lots of workshops. Being a woman in that time, this is like the mid-90s to 2000, you had to be tough and learn your job. Just really know your stuff, learn equipment very fast. At that time, we're shooting on film so there's a lot to know, and you have to prove yourself.
Let’s jump ahead to 2018. You joined forces with filmmaker Ngardy Conteh George to form OYA Media. How did it come about?
We knew each other before we formed the company. I had selected her to be one of the directors for a project called the Akua Benjamin Legacy Project. It was a series of short films talking about Black activists in Toronto who were no longer alive, and she did such a fabulous job. And then she came to me with a project that she wanted me to produce called Mr. Jane and Finch.
You were teaching film production at Toronto’s Ryerson University at that point.
Yes. I had finished my master's in production at York University and I was heading towards the teacher route. I was getting bogged down in the hustle of working in the industry and I felt like I wanted to try something else, maybe I wanted to be a professor. Then she brought me this project and we both had our own little companies, and thought it's easier to have one company so we decided, hey, let's just form a company and see what happens with Mr. Jane and Finch. If nothing, then we go our own ways, but let’s see. And now we're in our sixth year.
That documentary won two Canadian Screen Awards in 2020.
And we thought what are we gonna do now? We won two Canadian Screen Awards. That's a big spotlight on you so people came to us with projects. Laurie Townsend came to us with her project A Mother Apart. We started developing Black Community Mixtapes. So many different projects.
Your latest production - which you wrote and directed - is Bam Bam: The Sister Nancy Story, about the Jamaican dance hall legend. It is garnering great reviews and took this year’s Tribeca Film Festival by storm. What attracted you to Sister Nancy’s story?
I had made so many documentaries up until that point and I really wanted to make something different. I wanted to make something that felt like it was a hand-made love letter to her, a story about this dance hall artist from an impoverished community in Jamaica with high crime and how her voice touched the world, and now we've made a film that is touching the world.
One of OYA’s most meaningful projects is its mentoring program called Emerging Filmmakers.
We wanted to have an official program to support young Black creatives, to help them get their foot in the industry because we knew what we went through. We wanted to give people some tools while we were growing our own company.
The program is in its seventh year and boasts 100 alumni. That must make you feel proud.
I'm really proud of the people. I love the fact that so many of the folks who have gone through these programs we created are doing great things. There are people on all kinds of TV shows out there. It’s amazing.
The CMF recently announced it will invest more than $10M in 23 projects led by Black and racialized creators through its Program for Racialized Communities. It’s a welcome initiative, and you’re very familiar with CMF as it’s been a longtime supporter of OYA helping fund many of your projects.
They've been so invaluable in bolstering our company’s rapid growth in becoming a real player in Ontario and in the Canadian production scene. We're just hoping to become international players and then they can keep supporting us! And whatever we're given we use it wisely. As racialized people you have to prove yourself. Sometimes there are these low expectations or doubts. So, when we develop stuff, we develop things thoroughly. We can answer questions, we know what the holes are. We've done a great job using the funds and now we're seeing the funders, broadcasters and streamers really trusting us.
What do you envision for OYA as it grows and develops as a media company?
We’re opening our doors to partnerships with other producers for co-productions. It’s very important to us to build those relationships. As you grow you need more people, you need more smart people with you. So that's what we're doing now. And distribution is very important to us because some of our titles, some of the stories that we are telling, the mainstream doesn't know what to do with them.
We just have to think about ways to get the stories out there to wider audiences. We see that happening with Bam Bam, and after that we'll see where it goes, where that takes us.
