Coming to cinemas and Netflix this Friday (21st October) is new film Descendant, from The Order of Myths and The Great Invisible filmmaker Margaret Brown.
Produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground and Night Tide, in association with Two One Five Entertainment, the feature film sees Brown returning to her hometown of Mobile, Alabama to document the search for and historic discovery of the Clotilda, the last known ship illegally carrying enslaved Africans to arrive in the United States.
It follows the 2019 discovery of the ship and features interviews with members of the descendent Africatown community, presenting a moving portrait as they actively grapple with and fight to preserve their heritage, while examining what justice looks like today.
Despite the “dense” story, Brown says she struggled to fit everything in, telling RadioTimes.com exclusively that there was one story in particular she would have liked to have included.
“There’s a lady named Selma Mavin Owens, who runs the community garden,” she explained. “The community garden in Africatown is the largest garden in the state of Alabama.
“It’s an incredible place to hang out in the morning or at night when it’s not too hot, and people are gardening and they’re yelling at people across the rows, like, checking in with their neighbours. We filmed there a ton, and it ended up being a thread that I felt like unless I wanted the movie to be over two hours, I just couldn’t include.”
As well as this, Brown originally thought she’d have access to some of the white members of the community – particularly the Meaher family, descendants from Timothy Meaher, who built and owned the Clotilda slave ship.
Brown previously worked with Helen Meaher, former Alabama Mardi Gras Queen, and was expecting to interview her for Descendant.
“I thought since Helen Meaher had been in my film and travelled with me that she would talk to me,” she said.
“I thought I had access to the white people who were part of the apparatus of this so starting it I thought it would be like Order of Myths, like white anthropology looking at whiteness, which I felt equipped to do.
“But with this film, I realised about two years in, they probably weren’t going to talk to me, and in fact, all these other powerful white families in Alabama wouldn’t talk to me either because this is about justice. This is about reparations.”
Descendant premieres in UK cinemas and on Netflix on Friday 21st October. Sign up for Netflix from £6.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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