The Ebony Canal, a new documentary from Emmai Alaquiva

Thanks to a friendship connection, I scored a ticket to Friday night’s premiere of Emmai Alaquiva’s new documentary, “The Ebony Canal”. at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center. The film was shot here in Pittsburgh, took total of two years to make, and uses narrator Viola Davis’s voice really effectively as it tells its stories.

I am not a film critic, and I have no business pretending to be one, but here’s what I can tell you:

• Even if you’re not Black, or not a woman, Alaquiva makes you understand why the women are nervous if not outright fearful about the risks they are taking in carrying and delivering children. I thought this was an important component. If you don’t feel the risk they feel, this goes from being a documentary to being a 60 Minutes segment.
  

• The film deals with really heavy topics and emotions, but doesn’t crush you with them. It is primarily looking to make the audience aware of the problem, expressed as easily understood health data that shows a problem in how the United States cares for its Black mothers and babies. It gives you a bit of hope that change can be made by showcasing elected officials that have acknowledged the problem, but it’s not hard to see that there’s a lot more that has to happen from here.

The premiere event was packed and sold out, and someone told me that the waiting list was long enough to sell it out a second time.

When you get the chance to see The Ebony Canal, I recommend checking it out. We need more impactful filmmaking in this area, and if we continue to prove that there’s community support for it the way we did with this premiere, we might just get it.

Powerful vocalist Lyndsey Smith sings on stage at the beginning of the premiere event.