TLDR: The independent film It Comes in Waves screens at the Ottawa Canadian Film Festival, exploring the Rwandan diaspora, identity, and resilience through poetic realism.
Few Canadian films this year have carried as much quiet force as It Comes In Waves, the feature debut from writer-director-editor Fitch Jean. Screening at the Ottawa Canadian Film Festival (OCan) on Nov. 6 at ByTowne Cinema, the film captures a mood that lingers long after the credits roll. It’s a lyrical meditation on memory, migration, and the ghosts that trail us across oceans.
Set within the Rwandan diaspora in Canada, It Comes In Waves follows Akai (Adrian Walters), a young man navigating the weight of intergenerational trauma and the complexities of belonging. Walters, recently seen in The Handmaid’s Tale and Star Trek: Discovery, delivers a performance of remarkable restraint, his silences carrying the gravity of loss. Alongside him, 11-year-old Nendia Lewars and veteran performer Olunike Adeliyi round out a cast that bridges generations with nuance and power.
Jean’s direction is patient, introspective, and deeply personal. Working with producer Amir Zargara and screenwriter Sammy Mohamed, he shapes the film like a series of ripples: grief, memory, and faith intertwining until they become one current. His cinematography finds the sacred in the everyday: a kitchen bathed in late-afternoon light, a church basement humming with laughter, the stillness of snow falling on asphalt.
One of the film’s executive producers, Weggon Allen, a longtime friend and supporter of HipHopCanada, lends his signature commitment to uplifting Black Canadian voices to the project, helping bring its vision to life across Ottawa, Perth, and Toronto.
Following its world premiere at the American Black Film Festival in Miami and a festival run that included Birmingham’s Sidewalk Film Festival, It Comes In Waves now returns home, poised to leave its mark on Canadian independent cinema; not with noise, but with depth.
For more information about the 2025 OCan Film Festival, visit OCanFestival.ca.
