A version of this “Descendant” story first appeared in the Guild & Critics Awards/Documentaries issue of awards magazine TheWrap.
Director Margaret Brown, a native of Mobile, Alabama, was making a film about that city’s segregated Mardi Gras celebrations when she first heard about the “Clotilda,” the last slave ship to reach the United States. More than a decade later, she recruited producer Essie Chambers and made “Descendant,” whose executive producers include Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. The Netflix documentary is about the search for the ship’s wreckage, but more than that, it’s about a community that includes descendants of the people who financed the ship and the enslaved Africans who were transported on it. They founded a mobile community called Africatown, which for the past 100 years has been lined with polluting factories and industrial mills.
The “Clotilda”, by the way, set sail in 1860 with its 110 enslaved Africans from the West African kingdom of Dahomey, the same kingdom depicted in the movie “The Woman King”.
Margaret, you touched on this story 14 years ago with “The Order of the Myths”, but the “Clotilda” had not been found at that time. How much of the story did you know at the time?
margaret brown They didn’t teach it to me in school. I’m pretty sure when I told my mom that she was doing “The Order of Myths” she said, “Well, you know, the Meaher family, they brought in the last slave ship.” But the way she talked about it was almost like a ghost story or a myth. It had never been found and it was not something you talked about out loud. But when I found out that the black queen (Mardi Gras) was coming down from the ship, that movie focused a lot on those connections.
Essie, what brought you to this project?
ESSIE CAMERAS Margaret and I met at a writer’s residency. We talked about the story as friends, and then as it evolved and it became clear that the Meahers weren’t talking, the shape changed. And he asked me to come on as a producer to make sure that black people were at the center of the creative telling of the story. And since we were friends, that made all the difference, because it takes honesty and trust in these kinds of partnerships.
I think I joined maybe nine months after they started shooting. It was right around the time of the 1619 Project and Clint Smith and other people who were talking about American history with African-American history at the center. That conversation was just getting started, and it was incredibly exciting for me to join it. Besides the fact that this is Margaret’s home turf. She had relationships there, and with a story like this, access is everything. So all those pieces that brought us together.
Had you been taught this story growing up?
CAMERAS I am a black woman. I grew up in a majority white town. And when the chapter on slavery came on, the history teacher would ask me if she wanted to get up and talk. About? (laughs) It was horrible. I mean, I was lucky to have very educated parents who taught me about black history because I certainly didn’t learn anything in school. And I think where I got black history in school, there was a lot of shame about the kind of history that I was taught. And I think many black Americans would say the same.
Margaret, you said in the past that you weren’t sure if this was your story to tell. What got you to the point where you thought you could and should tell the story?
BROWN Well, a few different things. It is my territory and I felt that I had the support to do it. And he had the trust of the community. not the confidence of whole community. I don’t know everyone in Africatown, but I have the confidence of the people who are the stars of the movie. And honestly, I still struggle with it. I’m still like, “How does a white person tell this story?”
CAMERAS The way this movie evolved was very organic. That is the nature of a true cinematographic process. But I feel like what Margaret did so masterfully was evolve along with the journey of the film.
BROWN You never know what the story is. I thought the story would be more like “Order of the Myths” and that I might be the one to make the Meahers talk. Helen Meaher certainly collaborated with me before and spoke very openly about what her family did. So I thought I could get her in the movie. And then there was a moment where I realized, “Oh my gosh, they probably won’t talk to me.” And there were a lot of other white families that didn’t speak to me, or spoke to me in coded ways that weren’t really usable.
So I said, “Oh, I’m a white woman who’s making a movie about the black experience. What should I do?” (laughs) “I quit?” But he was already obsessed with the story and drawn to the people in the film. He wanted to be a part of this conversation.
The film has the search for “Clotilda”, which brings suspense but is not the heart of the story. And then you have the stories of the descendants and their community, and tapes of oral history passed down within the community, and the Zora Neale Hurston “Barracoon” element, which was based on conversations with the last survivor but was not published. during decades. . How do you find the balance?
BROWN Well, I think life is very dense. My favorite stories are multi-layered stories. I think that’s where the great editors and producers help you find your way, and I always knew I couldn’t leave my threads. I mean, the art of the movie is balancing that in a poetic way that intertwines and seems inevitable, you know? So yeah, that was the challenge.
We started it as a series because we thought, “This is too complicated for one movie.” But I think there’s this tension between art documentaries and activist documentaries, and I wanted to do something that was both. I wanted people to join the fight and be a part of what’s going on in Africatown, and I thought, “Well, if I make it a feature, I’ll make it faster.” I felt there was an urgency, and that made the decision for me.
Read more from the Guild & Critics/Documentary Awards edition here.
