Ninth Floor

This startling documentary from filmmaker Mina Shum sheds light on a disturbing chapter of Canadian history. In 1969, several hundred students at the Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in Montreal occupied the school's computer lab following a failed, yearlong effort by black students to be taken seriously over charges of racism leveled at a white biology professor. Ninth Floor (the title refers to the floor in a building where occupiers gathered) combines new interviews with former students (and others present at the time) coupled with plentiful archival footage to construct a mosaic examining the antecedents and consequences of what would turn into a violent episode. Whatever the validity of the original charges against that professor, it seems clear that the university dragged its feet in conducting a proper hearing, causing friction between the complainants and two black professors who were on the original investigatory board. Following more delays, a sit-in commenced that was interpreted as unlawful confinement of an official, which grew into an occupation of the computer lab, erupting at one point into the destruction of property and the surreal sight of punched cards from a Fortran computer program raining from windows like paper hail. Shum is very good at piecing together the timeline of these incidents, although her approach is often over-stylized (such as a panning shot of a telephone cord while we listen in on a call). Charges that Montreal police started a potentially lethal fire that drove students off the ninth floor aren't proved here but seem to have some merit. What is most unsettling is testimony concerning the sheer terror of students and cops alike, as many whites on the street below chanted racist slogans. A powerful revisiting of an ugly racial incident, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)