The 2022 Martha Vineyard African American Film Festival (MVAAFF) kicked off Friday with great pomp and circumstance — and a few tapes of “Hail to the Chief” — as Barack and Michelle Obama made a special appearance at the opening night screening of the Netflix documentary “Descending.”
When Netflix acquired the global rights to the Sundance award-winning documentary in January, Obamas’s production company signed Higher Ground to offer the feature alongside the operator and subscriber. The documentary, which won Sundance’s Special Jury Prize for Creative Vision, is set to be released on streaming device later this year.
The documentary, directed by Margaret Brown (“The Order of Myths”, “Be Here to Love Me: Townes Van Zandt”, “The Great Invisible”), follows members of Africa Town, a small community in Alabama, as they share their personal stories and the history of The community as descendants of Clotilda, the last known ship carrying enslaved Africans to the United States. The ship arrived in America after 40 years of the African slave trade which became a major crime. It was promptly cremated and its existence denied, but “after a century shrouded in secrecy and speculation, the descendants of Clotilda survivors are reclaiming their story,” according to the movie’s tagline.
For about 15 minutes, the former president and first lady grabbed the audience’s attention as they preached the importance of revealing the untold history and their goal to support projects that do exactly that, like “Descendant,” with their Upper Earth Banner.
“When we checked this…we looked at it and immediately thought, ‘That’s why we’re doing better.'” Because what we know about our history as blacks, we don’t talk about anything. We can’t get anything out of our elders, can we? We don’t know anything, Michelle said. and grandmother. We just don’t talk. And there’s a lot of psychology about that, but what this movie reminds us of is the power that our stories have. And we have to tell this truth.”
Michelle added: “We have to tell our stories to our little ones. We have to be them, we can’t follow this tradition of keeping our pain silent, because what this movie shows us is that our stories are the power that makes us watch. And I thought, too, this could be a start For the storytelling process, because guess what we have? We have phones, everyone uses them. And we need to encourage our young people to connect with the older people out there. And instead of taking pictures of your food, or in addition to taking pictures of your food and your latest TikTok whatever, how about talking to Grandma and Grandma and ask some of these questions to them.”
EDGARTOWN, MA – AUGUST 5: Barack Obama speaks during the premiere of the Netflix Descendant movie during the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival at the Harbor View Hotel on August 5, 2022 in Edgartown, Massachusetts. (Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for Netflix)
Getty Images for Netflix
They also made a few cracks about Martha’s Vineyard being their vacation home. After Michelle approached the microphone and said, “Surprise!” She praised the festival’s founders, Floyd and Stephanie Rance, and joked that they don’t attend the event often because they “create a buzz”. And when someone shouted at Barack that they wanted him back to the White House, he said that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to spend a month on the island. But Barak’s speech soon turned serious as he thought about the importance of breaking away from telling the story of Africa Town.
When we left the White House, Michelle and I talked about the things we wanted to do after the presidency. We have a lot of things going on, but one of the things that we learned when we were fighting for office and taking office was the importance of stories, who tells stories, what stories are true and what stories are left out,” Barak said. Its Al Rance is to raise stories that are often lost in the flow of time. Because we believe everyone’s stories matter. Everyone has a sacred story that motivates and moves us. It’s not just a matter of nostalgia, it pushes us into the present and the future.”
The project was produced by Kyle Martin, Essie Chambers, and Brown. The executive producers are Jeff Scholl and Diane Wehrman, co-producers; Kate Horowitz from Film Media. Two One Five Entertainment is produced by “Questlove” Thompson, Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, Shawn Gee and Zarah Zohlman.
On display on opening night were Brown, Chambers, Martin Thompson and co-producer Dr. Kern Jackson, who were about to participate in a Q&A about the film after the all-out event with Joycelyn Davis and Veda Tunstall, both descendants of Clotilda and subject of the document. The conversation was moderated by Dr. Jessica Harris.
Last month , diverse It was exclusively announced that the documentary would open the 20th edition of the film festival, but Obama’s appearance at the event came as a pleasant surprise. Also seen in the audience were Stacey Abrams, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Reverend Al Sharpton – who will sit down for a conversation about Loudmouth, the documentary about his life in activism and protest, on Saturday afternoon. After a shout-out from the DJ before the show, the powerful political trio received a standing ovation from the packed house.
The Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival, an Oscar-qualified film festival in the short film category, takes place August 5-13 with an impressive slate of independent films, documentaries, panel discussions, and exclusive events. Joining this year’s festival is Tyler Perry, who has a conversation about his upcoming Netflix movie “A Jazzzman’s Blues,” and Kasi Lemmons, who earned a Legacy Spotlight for her classic “Eve’s Bayou.” Additional talents include Regina Hall, Reginald Hudlin, Michael Ealy, Patina Miller, and the cast of Best Man: The Final Seasons for Peacock.
Watch Obama’s full speech above.
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