Top Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers ”Descendant” with Margaret Brown
It’s not really about the ship. The first thing you have to understand about Margaret Brown’s (“The Great Invisible”, “The Order of Myths”) brilliant new Netflix documentary “Descendant” about the Clotilda, the last known ship to arrive with enslaved Africans in the U.S., is that it’s not primarily about the search for and discovery of this historic vessel. What carries her complex and lyrical film along in its looping journey across time and place are the stories of the descendants themselves. Lorna Woods, Joycelyn Davis and Emmett Lewis are just a few of the remarkable “treasure keepers” of Africatown, now part of Mobile, Alabama, who, for generations, have shared and protected the stories of their ancestors. But, when, as Margaret documents, the ship is discovered, who is to say where the narrative will go from here?
Margaret joined Mike and Ken to discuss how she picked up where she left off from her 2008 film “The Order of Myths”, also set in her hometown of Mobile, to embark on this unique creative journey. How did the work of writer, anthropologist and filmmaker Zora Neale Hurston’s inspire Margaret and become, through Hurston’s book “Barracoon”, a key narrative device in the film? Why did Margaret turn off the camera in the midst of shooting one of the most powerful moments in the entire film? And why is the issue of zoning, as unsexy as it is, so crucial to understanding the past, present and future of Africatown? As Margaret puts it, “Where I ended the film is not the end of their story…. The story continues”.
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