"Boxing isn't a game. You play basketball, you play football, you don't 'play' boxing" says Ossie Paris, one of the characters in Clément Virgo?s incredible sixth feature. Indeed, nothing in this tough portrait of racial tensions and private battles in working class Halifax is particularly playful. The film revolves around a boxing match between two men on opposite sides of a dark and long standing conflict that threatens to tear communities and lives apart. Violent and emotional, Poor Boy?s Game tells a deeply moving story about the transformative power of forgiveness and the corrosive power of vengeance.

Last night, at the Toronto premiere of the film, Wayne Clarkson (Executive Director of Telefilm Canada) proudly introduced the film by saying ?I?m not here merely to enjoy with you Poor Boy?s Game with all of you, but for a personal reason. I used to run the Canadian film Centre and many years ago, around the early 90s, I had the pleasure of meeting Damon and Clement Virgo and have had the pleasure of watching this film grow.?

The audience was absolutely captivated by the film, and gave a modestly beaming Virgo a standing ovation during the credits. Danny Glover, who delivers perhaps the film?s most powerful performance, summed up everyone?s sentiments about the project when he gave the following short speech:

?I was attracted to the relationship between these two working class communities, and I thought that was very courageous of Clement and Chaz to kind of touch that and to put that on paper. Often we don?t talk about those things. The question about what we?re going to do as cultural workers and what kind of culture we want to do has to do with what stories we?re going to tell. What stories in some sense transform us or are vehicles for our own re-envisioning of ourselves and re-imagining ourselves as human beings. That?s the kind of work I want to be involved in, and Clement gave me an opportunity to get involved in this.

"And another thing, I?m glad this is a Canadian film (applause). These issues affect Halifax, or affect Toronto, or plague communities in the United States as well. Everywhere you go you see this deindustrialization of communities. People without opportunities and no recourse. Their jobs are outsourced and shipped out, and they?re marginalized and they lack the opportunity to enhance their communities and really embrace their families.

"You can effectively tell these stories and move people by the emotional journey that these characters go through. You can do that in art. Whatever we do as artists, whatever we do as human beings, all of that is a way of transformation, and it gives us the opportunity to think, to grow, and to challenge ourselves to make a better future."

A round of applause followed Glover?s inspired speech, and director Virgo chimed in ?what he said?.

Co-writer Chaz Thorne (who wrote the wickedly funny Just Buried, also playing at TIFF) said, of Glover?s character, ?In terms of characters that really took us on a journey, personally for me it was George. I know I as an individual really struggle with forgiveness. To me, that character, we?re in an age where we see movies with super-heroes, and they fly and shoot fucking beams out of their eyes, and to me George is a superhero in terms of his capacity for forgiveness. It was a character that was very inspiring to me and that I aspire towards.?

Poor Boy?s Game screens again screens again on Thursday Sept. 13, 5:00pm at Isabel Bader.