Canada / 2024 / 3mins / Experimental / English

"why some people be mad at me sometimes" is an experimental single channel film that cites the mother of Dancehall Sister Nancy singing her song Bam Bam in dialogue with Maya Angelou's performance of the poem The Mask. The video is a meditation on the misappropriation of blackness within music, and how often Black folks are told to not criticize but to smile and be grateful. Alwhile tracing my relationship to dancehall through archival footage of myself as a young person dancing at Folklorama. The performance of Afro Caribbean culture being one for others to consume.

Mahlet Cuff

Mahlet Cuff (b.1998) is a AfroCaribbean queer femme born and based in Winnipeg Manitoba (Treaty 1). They are an interdisciplinary artist, curator, filmmaker, arts cultural worker, writer, film programmer, DJ, performance and sound artist. Through a primarily lens based arts practice they are interested in themes of memory, erasure, Black feminist citational praxis and interrogating their own personal familial archives. They use mediums of photography and video work as a way to look at the past as a way to re-envision the present and to create new futures. Cuff’s work has been exhibited in Winnipeg, Toronto, Windsor, New York, Vancouver and Hamilton, Paris and Milwaukee. Within their writing practice, they strive to make connections between contemporary art and socio political issues. Learn More