The Living Consequences

Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North had its world premiere this evening before a sold-out crowd at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

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Traces of the Trade will have its world premiere on Martin Luther King Day, Monday, January 21, 2008, at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Members of the film cast and crew will be on hand for the premiere, and there will be a panel discussion earlier in the day with noted experts on slavery and race.

The news is now public:

Traces of the Trade has been selected for competition at the Sundance Film Festival!

We’re very pleased by this recognition for the film and its director, and we can’t wait to share our story.

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Yesterday, we held a screening of Traces of the Trade in Providence for Rhode Island educators.

The screening, sponsored by the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and hosted by Rhode Island College, was intended to solicit feedback on the uses of the film in the classroom context.

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The local Rhode Island screenings of Traces are generating a fair amount of attention in the state.

Tuesday’s screening in Bristol has resulted in two stories, one in the Providence Journal (“Bristol’s Ties to Slavery Featured“) and another in a local paper, “Slavery Documentary Draws a Packed House.” This is precisely what we were hoping for, as the R.I. screenings are intended to raise the visibility of the film in the state, while the Bristol screening was particularly aimed at giving the residents of Bristol a chance to become familiar with the documentary and to offer their feedback.

And the Phoenix has a story this week, “Buried History: Filmmaker Sparks Fresh Dialogue About RI’s Slave-Trading Past,” focused on last week’s screening in Providence at the Black Repertory Company. (Disclaimer: I was interviewed for the story.)

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Yesterday, we held the Bristol, R.I. premiere of Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, at the Roger Williams University School of Law.

This screening was intended to introduce the film to interested residents of Bristol, where the D’Wolf family was based and where many of the U.S. scenes were filmed. It was also an opportunity to thank some of the Bristol residents who assisted with filming, and to let them share their reactions and concerns.

The screening drew about 330 people, far more than the appellate courtroom designated for the screening could hold. To the credit of the law school and its staff, we were quickly given a large lecture hall for a second, simultaneous screening, which was also quickly filled to capacity.

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Paul Davis, a reporter for the Providence Journal, attended the screening of Traces of the Trade on Tuesday at the Providence Black Repertory Company.

This morning, he has an article in the Journal, headlined “Shaking the Family Tree: Filmmaker Explores Her Family’s Role in the Slave Trade,” and describing the film and its context in detail, as well as responses to it at the screening.

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I went with my cousin Katrina Browne to Providence this evening, for a local screening of her film, Traces of the Trade. This is her documentary about the journey which ten of us undertook to re-trace the footsteps of our ancestors in the slave trade, and to explore the meaning of that legacy today.

The screening was hosted by the Providence Black Repertory Company, which provided an excellent venue and generated a large turn-out.

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