Kensington Market: Heart of the City

In early 1900s Toronto, a community of Jewish immigrants transformed a row of Victorian houses along Kensington Ave into a bustling marketplace, setting the stage for what would become one of the city’s most historic, diverse, and unconventional neighbourhoods. Toronto filmmaker Stuart Clarfield explores Kensington Market's 150-year history through the eyes of the people who call it home. Blending archival imagery with extensive interviews, the film captures the kaleidoscope of cultures that define this bohemian enclave at the heart of the city, along with the ongoing fight to preserve its identity from the looming threat of gentrification.

Screening will be preceded by the archival short film, Creating the Ashkenaz Parade, 1997 & 1999 (7 min).
Flash back to the early days of Toronto’s Ashkenaz Festival in the 1990s, when its signature Ashkenaz Parade began in Kensington Market and proceeded down Spadina Avenue from the heart of 'old' Jewish Toronto to the Festival's Harbourfront Centre site. This audacious and joyful spectacle, featuring giant puppets, props, stiltwalkers, dancers, actors and a huge klezmer marching band, attracted massive participation from the community and served as a poignant symbol of the Ashkenaz Festival itself and the vitality of the city's Jewish community. Edited by David Hoffert from footage shot by Chad Derrick and David A. Stein z”l.

Presented in memory of Allan Rakowsky (z”l)