Descendant

Margaret Brown's 2022 documentary is about the residents of Africatown in Mobile, Alabama, and the trail of the ship Clotilda. Forty years after the slave trade became a crime in the United States, in 1860, that ship illegally brought enslaved people into the country for the last known time, and was sunk to leave no evidence. At its centre is the confirmation of an oral history carried down through generations when the wreck is found. But the film does not stop there: it also takes in the industrial plants surrounding Africatown, the pattern of land ownership, and the present position of the descendants of the Meaher family, who financed the voyage. It won a special jury award at Sundance. The account at times spreads too wide. Who it's for: viewers interested in American history, oral history method and environmental justice. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a narrative gathered around a single event, or avoiding the details of the history of slavery.