What does it mean to be black?
That's the big and hard-to-answer question explored in Colour Me, a 46-minute documentary directed, produced and written by east Toronto resident, Sherien Barsoum.
The full-length feature film stars motivational speaker Anthony McLean and six black youth from Fletcher's Meadow Secondary School, which has a 70 per cent black student population. The high school is located in Brampton, one of the GTA's fastest growing and ethnically dominated suburbs.
Barsoum, who grew up in York Region and lived in North York for five years before recently relocating to the Victoria Park and Kingston Road area, met McLean about two years ago.
They had both volunteered and worked as youth workers at a non-profit organization in Alexandra Park called Urban Promise, which runs after-school programs for local children and teens.
Inspired to learn more about McLean's work with youth and race issues, notably his mentorship program Living the Dream, Barsoum started chatting with her film's future star and soon found out he was dealing with his own identity struggles as the child of a white mother and a black father.
"I found it was incredibly interesting that a grown man in his 30s with two kids and a wife had a secret identity crisis," said Barsoum, who knew if she was able to convince McLean to share his story, it would make for a fascinating documentary.
"It was a time in (McLean's) life where he felt he could be himself and he gave me his trust. The story follows Anthony and tells his story," she said.
Colour Me's main theme, misconceptions about identity, is illustrated through McLean's groundbreaking mentorship program involving six Brampton teens who share their personal challenges as well as their responses to McLean's story.
Barsoum, whose film was shot in 2010 and edited in August with the help of a small crew, received a broadcasting license from OMNI TV in 2009. The film was aired in November and screened late last year on the U.S. Documentary Channel. There will be an encore airing of the film, Wednesday, February 15th at 6 p.m.
"It's been totally beyond my wildest dreams," said Barsoum of Colour Me, which has been screened at film festivals in San Francisco, Nashville, Mexico City, Edmonton, Montreal and Halifax as well as in Toronto.
A graduate of Ryerson University's School of Journalism who holds a certificate from Seneca College in documentary filmmaking, Barsoum always knew she wanted to work as a journalist, but wasn't only interested in covering hard news.
"I always wanted to go deeper into things," she said.
Following university, Barsoum worked for a time as a chase producer for a major television network. In 2003, she was offered a full-time position as a youth worker at Urban Promise, where she had volunteered while studying at Ryerson University. Three years later, the call to produce media was too strong to ignore and she decided to get back into journalism.
"I wanted to do documentaries, but I knew I needed to start somewhere," said Barsoum, who began volunteering and accepting small jobs in the field. The following year, Canadian Television Services, which produces the Christian program, 100 Huntley Street, hired her as a reporter/producer.
"It gave me a huge opportunity. I went from being a production assistant to a national reporter and I got the experience I needed," said Barsoum, who currently works as a senior video producer for the provincial government's Cabinet Office.
In 2009, she started her own production company, Taza Media.
Colour Me, which she produced while working full-time, is her first major film.
Barsoum's next major project is motherhood, a role she said is a perfect fit with the topics explored in Colour Me as she's of Egyptian descent, while her husband Sheldon's background is Trinidadian and Guyanese.
"It's very relevant. We're making decisions right now about the message we want to give our kids and the reality they'll face," she said.
"I have some ideas brewing (for future documentaries) but I have a baby brewing first."