The I and S of Lives

Kevin Jerome Everson’s (Black Bus Stop, MIFF 2019; IFO, MIFF 2018) camera dances with a rollerskater in this mesmerising exercise in fluidity and embeddedness.

Presenting another screen work that straddles observation and abstraction, polemic and poetry, Everson this time turns his lens on Jahleel Gardner, who rollerskates on the pavement of Washington DC’s Black Lives Matter Plaza one afternoon during the summer of 2020. The I and S of Lives, which previously screened at the Cinéma du Réel and True/False festivals, glides gracefully with its subject, the shots of spins and dips inserting the viewer powerfully into a site of resistance and protest.