The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced it will rename its largest cinema in honour of Canadian civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond. • CEO Cameron Bailey made the announcement at a special event marking Viola Desmond Day at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto on Tuesday. • He said Cinema 1 will officially be unveiled as the Viola Desmond Cinema in 2023. • "We wanted to honour her because we feel her story deserves to be better known. It just made sense because her active resistance was in a cinema," Bailey said before the announcement. • Desmond was arrested while watching a movie at the former Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, N.S., in 1946. The theatre was segregated at the time. • Desmond, who was nearsighted, sat in the whites-only floor section at the theatre. When she refused to leave, police dragged her away. • After her arrest, she was left in jail for 12 hours before being fined $26 for tax evasion based on the difference paid for floor and balcony tickets. • Her defiance helped motivate the struggle against racial segregation in Canada. • Tuesday's event was held to recognize Desmond's legacy and that of Wanda Robson, who was an activist in her own right and instrumental in bringing recognition to her sister's contribution to Canadian civil rights. • Thanks to Robson's activism, Desmond, who died in 1965, was given a posthumous apology and pardon for her arrest by the province in April 2010. • Two front-row seats, side-by-side in the Toronto cinema, will be dedicated to the sisters as a reminder of their courage and advocacy. • Along with renaming the cinema, TIFF has also announced a $2-million fundraising campaign that will support Black women storytellers, enhance programming for Black audiences, eliminate access barriers and amplify Desmond and Robson's stories. • • • 📄: Cassidy Chisholm Photos: Michael WilsonCBC, Communications Nova Scotia/Bank of Canada/Flickr, Darren Calabrese/Canadian Press @cbcns #beingblackincanada #black #canada #bbic #blackexcellence