A group from Toronto is looking to collect and digitize video from Indigenous, black and other visible minority communities in Nova Scotia to share Canadian stories from under-represented populations.

The Home Made Visible archival project was started by the Regent Park Film Festival. The group was at the Halifax Central Library on Saturday to screen short films and talk about the initiative.

"There's a gap in representation in Canada's media archives of Indigenous, black and people of color that invokes the sort of everyday life, and the joys of everyday life, because there are certain narratives told about our communities," said Elizabeth Mudenyo, special projects manager of the Regent Park Film Festival.

"And what we want to do is add more nuance to them and make make room for celebration. So we are digitizing home movies for free."

Elizabeth Mudenyo is the special projects manager of the Regent Park Film Festival. (Anjuli Patil/CBC)

The Home Made Visible initiative began in October 2017 and will end this May.

The group is specifically looking for video from the 20th century, or earlier.

"Nothing is too mundane or everyday, so anything that you value as a contribution is something that we would accept as long as our capacity allows," Mudenyo said.

The group has already received video from across Canada, including tapes of weddings, auditions, Christmas celebrations and snowstorms.

The Home Made Visible archival project is looking to get home videos from Indigenous, black and other people of colour. They're offering to digitize old movies for free. (Anjuli Patil/CBC)

Participants are allowed to digitize up to five hours of footage. From there, the video is uploaded to a private website where it can be downloaded to share with family members.

"Then, from there, we ask that they submit a minimum of five minutes to the archives at York University Libraries. You select the exact in and out points of what you want to contribute," Mudenyo said.

Anyone who wants to submit videos to digitize can visit the project's website to learn more at homemadevisible.ca.

Short film screenings

Maya Bastian and Faraz Anoushahpour screened their short films at the Halifax library as part of the Home Made Visible project.

Both films use archival material to tell their stories.

Anoushahpour made his film, Pictures of Departure, with his sister.

It's about their mother contemplating her relationship with her father through the letters that her father exchanged with their grandmother.

Faraz Anoushahpour screened his film, Pictures of Departure, at Halifax Central Library on Saturday. (Anjuli Patil/CBC)

Maya Bastian's film, Arrival Archives, is a documentary about newcomer arrival stories told through a multi-generational perspective.

Bastian said she tried to find as many home movies from people of colour as possible for her documentary.

"I wanted to use so many home movies that you couldn't tell whose home movie it was, that it became a communal experience as opposed to … one person's experience," Bastian.

"It was beautiful to look at home movies from people of colour, which you really don't see in the public sphere very often."

Maya Bastian's film, Arrival Archives, is a documentary about newcomer arrival stories told through a multi-generational perspective. (Anjuli Patil/CBC)

Bastian said more visibility for people of colour is important "because we've lived so long with the idea that people of colour are the other, that they live outside the Canadian experience."

Anoushahpour agreed.

"I think visibility and representation of people of colour's archives, home movies, documents, every day lives ... it's important for those things to exist," he said. "I was struck how this library has different sections with different languages and I think that needs to become the norm."