ABSTRACT
From Vikings in ships to enslaved Africans on the Underground Railroad to Vietnamese and Tamils in lifeboats, Canada has a protracted history of people lured by the promise of new beginnings and bright hope and those seeking refuge. The perilous arrival and dramatic rescue of 155 Tamil Sri Lankan refugees off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, in 1986 laid the foundation for the inaugural site-specific live-documentary world premiere of Brothers in the Kitchen at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on May 4, 2016, in Toronto, Canada. The premiere unfolded live inside a real café restaurant in downtown Toronto, with the documentary's subjects, the audience, the musicians, dancers, and a narrator all gathered to tell the story of the Tamil Sri Lankan diaspora in Canada—across three decades. This was a direct face-to-face relationship between the storytellers and their audience, in an interactive co-creative recounting of migrant journeys to Canada.
