Jamaican-born Canadian film-maker, Clement Virgo (right), tells things the way he sees it to Ricardo Allicock, chief of protocol in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, at the reception and film screening, held at Sir Philip Sherlock Centre for the Performing and Creative Arts, UWI, Mona, on Monday. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

Before The Planet of Junior Brown was shown at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, UWI, Mona, last Monday evening, director Clement Virgo told the audience he had not seen it in about six years.

And when the 1997 film, the Canadian High Commission's contribution to the 2009 Black History Month celebrations, was finished, Virgo gave an assessment of his film-making style at the time The Planet of Junior Brown was made.

"Looking at the film now it seems very psychological and the shooting style seems very grave," Virgo said. He said that if he was doing The Planet of Junior Brown now he would use more shots of the same scene, as he doubted he has the courage now to take the approach of extended shots that he had in the first place.

And he pointed out that he was relatively young when he made the award-winning film.

Adolescent life

Although it is 12 years old, The Planet of Junior Brown was new to most of those who were at Monday night's screening, and they followed a very overweight Junior Brown through the confusion of his adolescent life. The movie opened with Brown playing a piano with no strings and a tale of disillusionment gradually unfolded, including his having to inject a diabetic mother during her crises, longing for a baby grand piano in a store which the owner did not want him to enter, and his relationship with best friend Buddy Clarke.

Among the strange relationships in The Planet of Junior Brown was that with music teacher Ms Peeps, who has him playing on the tabletop as her piano is reserved for concert pianists.

While Junior Brown lives with his mother (and lies to his friend about his father visiting when he is stood up on their planned Saturday outing) Clarke lives in his own 'planet', a home he has made in an old warehouse. And the various such set-ups with disenfranchised, disenchanted young persons were all called planets.

Buddy's planet

There was a physical representation of the solar system as well, set up in a basement at the school they attend, and to which Junior and Buddy escape when they should be in school, wondering at the movement of the planets along with an older friend who's a maintenance officer when they should be in class.

In the end, Junior refuses to allow his mother to manipulate him with her diabetic crises and, in Buddy's planet, the piano he wanted to play so much is set up under the solar system model taken from the school. Junior plays as a group of friends (including his first girlfriend) look on.

Before the screening there was a brief history of the black presence in Canada, including the Underground Railroad and the role black people played in various armed conflicts.

The Planet of Junior Brown cost Can$2.5 million to make.

Virgo told the audience that he wishes to do two films in Jamaica, one about former sprinter Ben Johnson and the other about his own early years in Montego Bay, St James, where he grew up before migrating to Canada at 11 years old.