HALIFAX—A raw documentary on Canada’s largest Black community of North Preston takes to the big screen this week with hopes of making audiences think about the realities of poverty, racism and human trafficking, but also about the success of its residents and the resiliency of the historic area.

This is North Preston opens in select Toronto and Dartmouth theatres this Friday, and follows R&B artist Justin ‘Just Chase’ Smith on a visit home to North Preston to be with his family, friends and reflect on growing up in the community of roughly 4,000, as well as how he’s come to live in Los Angeles pursuing a music career.

Director Jaren Hayman said he initially knew Smith as a musician and had no idea North Preston existed. When he heard Smith talk about his upbringing, Hayman was blown away by what he felt was a “fascinating” story the whole country should hear.

Hayman is a white man from Toronto, but he said that outsider perspective was important, because it allowed him to go into the community without preconceived notions, and meant he could sidestep the tension and bias that still exists between many Halifax residents and North Preston.

During a phone interview with Smith Thursday, Hayman said wanted to share the voices of Smith and his friends, since “maybe people haven’t heard that side of things before, and have them understand the full picture of it.”

The film features local historian Garry James outlining Preston’s long history as a haven for Black people from all over the world, including as the last stop on the Underground Railroad for U.S. slaves and Loyalists who fled after the American Revolution. The movie also shows how the community’s rural location has meant it’s been cut off from other Halifax areas. There’s only one road in and one road out, with limited resources and employment opportunities.

The film also touches on the community’s strong church-going culture and highlights the doctors, lawyers and athletes like boxer Kirk Johnson who hail from the area.

The film follows Smith, his brothers and his group of friends as they hang outside the fire hall, or cram into a tiny kitchen drinking with guns on their hips, rapping along to music and talking openly about “the pimp game” and drug dealing. Despite that, Smith said getting people on board with the project only took a phone call as they were excited to finally give their own perspectives.

“Chase said it, too: ‘Guys, we’re not going to shy away from our problems,’ you know what I mean. We’re going to actually tackle this head-on, but then we’re going to look at the reasons and the root of these issues and try to come at it from an intelligent angle instead of … painting everybody with one label,” Hayman said.

For many years, the community has been seen as a human trafficking hub. Police have described North Preston’s Finest as a gang that sends young girls from the N.S. community to Ontario and other parts of Canada.

Many in the film say that to them, North Preston’s Finest has always meant “family.” They say it was a way of referring to the whole community that was then labelled as a gang when local men were convicted for weapons and trafficking offences.

Smith and other men in the film refer to “pimping” very casually, describing it as something they ended up doing because the “hustlers” and pimps were the only people in North Preston with a lot of money, nice clothes and cars.

As an RCMP officer points out in the film, the term pimping hasn’t been criminally used for decades, but refers to human trafficking. In partnership with various groups for the N.S. Trafficking Elimination Partnership (NSTEP), the YWCA Halifax created a seven-point definition of the practice, which states trafficking should not be conflated with sex work. While the NSTEP partners don’t have a consensus on the concept of choice within the sex industry, they do agree that trafficking and exploitation involves “third party control and exploitation.”

Hayman said it was important to him to include the voices of trafficking survivors. One woman whose identity was protected said that while there are women who choose to work in the sex trade, many are being forced into it with psychological and physical abuse. She described her own trafficking as having “murdered” the person she used to be. “No one should go through that,” she said.

Both Hayman and Smith said that they don’t believe the film glorifies the criminal lifestyle and that they wanted to show the community's positives and negatives.

“I have to be real to what some of this is, and if we weren’t, if we cut that out or showed it a different way then I don’t think the rest of Canada … would believe it as much,” Hayman said.

“I don’t think you look at that and go ‘this looks awesome.’ They’re still in these dire situations over there in Preston. It’s supposed to make you think, and it’s supposed to make you feel.”

In the film, social justice advocate Rev. Darryl Gray says the spirit of North Preston is one of “victory” in spite of stereotypes, racism, police profiling, and a history that wanted to reject it. He said that in spite of all those things, the community thrived.

Smith said he’s heard backlash from some older people in the community who’ve seen the trailer and are worried about the image it’s presenting or things it might have left out. He said he feels confident that once people watch, they’ll understand how it’s aiming to shine a light on all aspects of North Preston.

In the first few minutes of the film, Smith’s father talks about how they found a sawed-off shotgun in his son’s room and decided to send him to Toronto to focus on music. It was also around this time in 2001 that Smith’s friend “Little Nathan” was shot and killed in front of him.

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It was the wake-up call Smith said he needed to change his life. Now, with his own music career and years of perspective, he’s hoping to inspire young people in North Preston to realize they can write their own destiny and be “anything we want.”

Hayman says he hopes the film will give people in Nova Scotia and the rest of North America a chance to learn how North Preston evolved to become the way it is and to see which opportunities were placed in front of people like Smith and which were not.

“You might not agree with it, but if you could at least understand how this stuff happens, then maybe you can start changing your outlook,” Hayman said. “This is our history. It’s the most unique town in the country, I firmly believe that.”

This is North Preston is rated 14A and opens in select theatres Friday, with Nova Scotia screenings running only in the Dartmouth Crossing Cineplex and in Toronto at Cineplex Cinemas Yonge-Dundas until May 23. It will also be available on iTunes in Canada in August.

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