DESCENDANT

Documentary filmmaker Margaret Brown (The Order of Myths) returns to her hometown of Mobile, Alabama to document the search for and historic discovery of The Clotilda, the last known ship to arrive in the United States, illegally carrying enslaved Africans. In 1860, 110 people were taken from their country of Dahomey (now known as Benin), West Africa and transported to the shores of Mobile, Alabama on The Clotilda, more than 50 years after the international slave trade was abolished and considered a crime punishable by death. Upon arrival, the ship’s owner set The Clotilda on fire and sunk it, in hopes the ship would never be discovered and his crime would be forgotten. Since then, residents of Africatown, a small community of descendants of those on The Clotilda, have lived knowing the ship that carried their ancestors was buried just offshore. After more than a century of secrecy and speculation, the 2019 discovery of the ship turns attention toward the descendant community of Africatown and presents a moving portrait of a community actively grappling with and fighting to preserve their heritage while examining what justice looks like today. A special jury prize winner at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.  

108 min.