Dubai Telegraph - Long-lost slave ship and fake riot towns spotlight race at Sundance

EUR -
AED 3.879921
AFN 70.774705
ALL 97.658441
AMD 409.488241
ANG 1.905213
AOA 963.376768
ARS 1054.320885
AUD 1.627536
AWG 1.901401
AZN 1.801486
BAM 1.943481
BBD 2.134372
BDT 126.319293
BGN 1.9558
BHD 0.398119
BIF 3061.256379
BMD 1.056334
BND 1.412811
BOB 7.304697
BRL 6.133815
BSD 1.057139
BTN 89.15023
BWP 14.343757
BYN 3.459372
BYR 20704.14942
BZD 2.130774
CAD 1.478319
CDF 3026.39715
CHF 0.935785
CLF 0.037514
CLP 1035.112444
CNY 7.631383
CNH 7.652882
COP 4731.320676
CRC 539.798787
CUC 1.056334
CUP 27.992855
CVE 110.756993
CZK 25.285045
DJF 187.73139
DKK 7.458754
DOP 63.776161
DZD 141.547711
EGP 52.10252
ERN 15.845012
ETB 128.925753
FJD 2.399199
FKP 0.831283
GBP 0.831356
GEL 2.884081
GGP 0.831283
GHS 17.012698
GIP 0.831283
GMD 74.999517
GNF 9116.163919
GTQ 8.168224
GYD 221.158132
HKD 8.219706
HNL 26.472039
HRK 7.535367
HTG 138.99552
HUF 407.89813
IDR 16738.565373
ILS 3.965716
IMP 0.831283
INR 89.179585
IQD 1384.325909
IRR 44463.742746
ISK 147.284729
JEP 0.831283
JMD 167.357086
JOD 0.749047
JPY 164.334965
KES 136.790508
KGS 91.061436
KHR 4278.153377
KMF 492.621303
KPW 950.700505
KRW 1481.899804
KWD 0.324971
KYD 0.880916
KZT 521.017397
LAK 23181.253406
LBP 94594.723681
LKR 308.961568
LRD 194.36531
LSL 19.278261
LTL 3.11908
LVL 0.638966
LYD 5.144042
MAD 10.518957
MDL 19.048258
MGA 4917.235703
MKD 61.531456
MMK 3430.932127
MNT 3589.423527
MOP 8.469315
MRU 42.121293
MUR 49.531301
MVR 16.320345
MWK 1833.795702
MXN 21.69129
MYR 4.711444
MZN 67.498546
NAD 19.277515
NGN 1771.95785
NIO 38.851914
NOK 11.767666
NPR 142.642227
NZD 1.796592
OMR 0.406667
PAB 1.057099
PEN 4.016129
PGK 4.156411
PHP 62.152628
PKR 293.713639
PLN 4.341243
PYG 8250.095155
QAR 3.845638
RON 4.975967
RSD 116.975311
RUB 104.047459
RWF 1441.89612
SAR 3.969228
SBD 8.855836
SCR 14.40717
SDG 635.387436
SEK 11.603515
SGD 1.418836
SHP 0.831283
SLE 24.100276
SLL 22150.800682
SOS 603.695541
SRD 37.267363
STD 21863.98426
SVC 9.24937
SYP 2654.071001
SZL 19.278362
THB 36.91096
TJS 11.263007
TMT 3.707733
TND 3.32481
TOP 2.474044
TRY 36.2854
TTD 7.183466
TWD 34.278574
TZS 2809.848602
UAH 43.672836
UGX 3879.409365
USD 1.056334
UYU 44.567497
UZS 13547.485199
VES 47.531547
VND 26772.789136
VUV 125.410144
WST 2.954552
XAF 651.855898
XAG 0.034887
XAU 0.000411
XCD 2.854796
XDR 0.796378
XOF 651.239726
XPF 119.331742
YER 263.875515
ZAR 19.259818
ZMK 9508.281216
ZMW 28.91707
ZWL 340.139167
  • CMSC

    0.0700

    24.61

    +0.28%

  • SCS

    -0.3000

    13.37

    -2.24%

  • BCC

    1.4200

    142.55

    +1%

  • RBGPF

    -0.8500

    59.34

    -1.43%

  • CMSD

    -0.0200

    24.73

    -0.08%

  • NGG

    -0.7800

    62.12

    -1.26%

  • RIO

    -0.5800

    60.62

    -0.96%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.24

    +0.15%

  • BCE

    -0.4800

    27.21

    -1.76%

  • GSK

    -0.4100

    35.11

    -1.17%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0500

    7.11

    -0.7%

  • BTI

    0.1800

    35.42

    +0.51%

  • AZN

    0.1000

    65.29

    +0.15%

  • BP

    0.4100

    28.57

    +1.44%

  • RELX

    -0.4700

    46.12

    -1.02%

  • VOD

    0.2800

    8.75

    +3.2%

Long-lost slave ship and fake riot towns spotlight race at Sundance
Long-lost slave ship and fake riot towns spotlight race at Sundance

Long-lost slave ship and fake riot towns spotlight race at Sundance

From its last known slave ship to heavy police militarization in the Civil Rights era, the United States' deeply troubled history with racism is highlighted by several Sundance festival films this week.

Text size:

"Descendant" and "Riotsville, USA" are among multiple documentaries and dramas on racial justice at the indie movie showcase, which is taking place online for a second year running due to the pandemic.

In "Descendant", premiering Saturday, Margaret Brown revisits her Alabama hometown where the "Clotilda" landed with 110 slaves in 1860, decades after the trans-Atlantic trade has been outlawed.

Many descended from those slaves still live in the same community, and have passed down tales of their ancestors across the generations. The ship owner's family remains prominent landowners in the area, too.

But the remains of the ship -- deliberately sunk by its owner to evade justice -- were only found in 2018. Located wrecks of slave ships are extremely rare.

"I knew if the ship was found, it's proof. It's a way for people to physically trace their ancestry in a way that's never been done in this country," Brown, who began the film six years ago, told AFP.

The descendants, whose forebears escaped slavery after five years with the end of the Civil War, still live on marginalized land, hemmed in by heavy industry zones whose pollutants are linked to cancer.

According to the film, some of these factories are even constructed on land leased by the Meaher family, who owned the Clotilda.

Despite cooperating with Brown on a previous documentary, none of the Meaher family would speak with her for "Descendant".

"People were afraid," said Brown.

"This story is a way to frame a conversation about reparations," she added.

"Reparations can be seen as a tricky word. But there's nothing tricky about justice. I just hope the film can start conversations about justice."

- 'Dark' -

Debuting a day earlier at Sundance was "Riotsville, USA", in which Sierra Pettengill unearthed footage of fake model towns used by police and military in the 1960s to practice suppressing civil rights protests.

Eerie clips show a grandstand packed with army chiefs laughing and applauding as a Black man is bundled into a new, state-of-the-art anti-riot vehicle in front of a row of fake shopfronts nicknamed "Riotsville".

"The CIA is there, secret service agents are there, police chiefs, high ranking military members, politicians, senators," Pettengill told AFP.

"And to see that group of people laughing at something that's dark as it is -- that this is even being recreated, much less a display of pain and anger -- I think is very telling about the attitudes of that time."

The Riotsville streets, seen in archive military training and media footage, were created in response to protests and rioting in dozens of major US cities in the late 1960s.

Without explicitly targeting racial minorities, the exercises distinguished between "white protesters, and what they call 'hardcore professional agitators,' which are of course all Black," said Pettengill.

- 'Reckoning' -

Sundance head Tabitha Jackson earlier told AFP that racial injustice was one of several themes of "complex reckoning" and "accountability" being taken up by filmmakers at this year's festival.

"These are the questions of the day, especially in this country," said Brown, pointing to the ongoing US voting rights battle, framed by Democrats as an all-out assault by conservative states targeting racial minorities.

"There's obviously been a necessary -- and we like to say 'overdue' -- conversation," added Pettengill.

Watching the origins of systems like the militarization of the police "is empowering in order to realize that we can take them apart," she added.

"We don't live in an inevitability. But in general, it says something about the way we're living now, and there's not a number to call to fix it. It's really up to us."

Sundance runs until January 30.

G.Koya--DT