- The rise and legacy of Toronto's nine-time Queen of Carnival, Joella Crichton who is aiming to win a historic tenth crown in her last ever performance.
- BECOMING A QUEEN takes us inside Toronto's world-famous Carnival, an annual celebration of Caribbean pride and identity in this ultra-multicultural city. Among the biggest events of its kind in the world, Toronto's Carnival draws participants and tourists from across the Caribbean, Europe, and all over North America.
Joella Crichton's dream is to be Caribbean Queen of Carnival in Toronto for the tenth time, a feat never that has never been done before. She has a skilled team behind her and devoted fans cheering her on, but also keen, and younger, competitors vying for the title. Her title. Through Joella and her tight knit team we experience Carnival on an intimate scale. It's the celebration of the year, suffused with meaning and significance. And at its centre is the King and Queen competition that Joella has been preparing for. This is where the real artistry of Carnival is.
Along the way, we follow Joella's exhaustive preparations for the event. We meet with the brilliant and charismatic costume designer Kenney Coombs who works hard hours to ensure his star will look like a Queen. We encounter Joella's sister Mischka (a performer in a side category of Female Individual), and her mother Lou-Ann, a living link back to the Caribbean island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Though focused on an intimate scale, the film pulls back from time to time to provide wider views of the significance of Carnival to the Caribbean diaspora community, and to discuss the role of the King and Queen competition in the festivities. A much-misunderstood event, Carnival has suffered from racial prejudice from the wider community, and struggles to maintain the funding necessary for such a big-scale event. BECOMING A QUEEN engages with this prejudice, through the eyes of the very people who look to Carnival as a profound expression of identity and cultural pride. Moreover, a key theme in Carnival is the refusal of European standards of beauty, and of body image. A defiant Caribbean-flavoured feminism runs through Joella and the women around her as they prepare for the competition.
We also follow Joella as she engages in community outreach in the form of teaching and storytelling. As part of her efforts to keep Caribbean traditional storytelling alive, Joella runs workshops and works closely with children educating them of their traditions, aiming to further celebrate Caribbean identities when she not onstage in Carnival.
Joella, along with her mother and sister, pilgrimage back to their roots, playing mas in St. Vincent's Carnival for her first time. Back to her roots, celebrating her heritage in all of the vibrant colour and exuberant revelry of a true Caribbean carnival.
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