A new short film screening at TIFF is exploring the connections between water, grief and generational trauma within Black communities.
Sea Star is a short film by Toronto filmmaker Tyler Mckenzie Evans, telling the story of a middle-aged Black man managing both his fear of water and the depth of his grief, depicting bodies of water as both a fearsome presence and a vessel of transformation, holding grief, masculinity, and healing.
The movie takes place during a normal day at a local public pool, where protagonist Chris (John Phillips) is taking a swimming lesson. But as he enters the water, he is overcome by traumatic memories, repressed emotions, and generational trauma surrounding water.
Describing the process for making the film, Evans said he wanted to show a bittersweet moment filled with melancholy about the hardships being faced by the protagonist as he faces his layer of fears and trauma surrounding swimming. The film was partly inspired by Evans’ father, who, despite insisting his sons learned to swim as children, has never been able to swim himself.
“It was a mix of learning about my dad, and the news headlines about Black men and women drowning,” Evans told Now Toronto.
“I’ve done a lot of research throughout the process of writing this film, learning [about] the racial disparities when it comes to swimming, not having access to community pools in certain neighbourhoods, and just like the overall historical trauma when it comes to water, even from the times of slavery.”
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that Black children in the U.S. between the ages of 5–19 were 5.5 times more likely to drown in a swimming pool than their white peers. This film builds on that fact, generating deeper conversations around the historical, systemic, and emotional factors behind this fact.
This historical context ranges from the experiences of enslaved people forcibly taken and moved overseas using ships that crossed the ocean to the Americas, with many drowning in the process, to the contemporary issue of unequal access to public swimming pools experienced by youth in underprivileged communities.
Evans explained that the film also touches on many hidden truths within many Black families, surrounding topics like grief, vulnerability, emotional suppression, and the generational weight passed down from generation to generation, particularly among Black men.
“I want people within my community to feel seen in some way. Because people in my community make light of not being able to swim, but I think it is very much a serious kind of issue that our community faces,” Evans shared.
Evans adds that due to a lack of resources, many members of the older generations in his family never learned to swim. He shared pride in his father, who, while still unable to swim, did attempt it, taking a few lessons to try and conquer his fear of water.
“I’m just super thankful that he kind of broke that generational trauma,” he explained.
He hopes that the film inspires some change, encourages Black people who cannot swim to take their first lesson, and addresses the underlying generational trauma around water within many Black communities.
“I think a lot of Black men have a hard time speaking out about their trauma, and I’m hoping that they watch the film and open up about that as well,” he shared.
“I do therapy myself, [and] I think therapy helps you to open up,” Evans explained. “I still deal with that myself, but I think we kind of have to put one foot in front of the other, and I think Black men in my community specifically have a hard time talking about their feelings, and I’m hoping this will kind of help them open up a bit more.”
Sea Star is premiering at TIFF as part of the festival’s Short Cuts 2025 Programming and is featured in the third collection of shorts. Programme 03 has screenings at Scotiabank Theatre slated for Sunday, Sept. 7 at 8:15 p.m. and Thursday, Sept. 11 at 2:30 p.m.
Learn about the other shorts in the Short Cuts programming, and find tickets to screenings, here.
