Program 1: Deborah A. Thomas
Four Days in West Kingston (2018, 8m) + Four Days in May: Kingston 2010 (2018, 40m) are collaborations between anthropologist and filmmaker Deborah A. Thomas, musician and composer Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn, and psychologist Deanne M. Bell. Their experimental documentaries explore the archives generated by state violence by focusing on the 2010 State of Emergency in West Kingston, Jamaica – popularly known as the “Tivoli Incursion.” In May of that year, the military and police force entered Tivoli Gardens and surrounding communities by force in order to apprehend Christopher “Dudus” Coke, who had been ordered for extradition to the United States to stand trial for gun and drug-related charges. This resulted in the deaths of at least 75 civilians. The film features community residents talking about what they experienced during the “incursion,” and naming and memorializing loved ones they lost. Through the use of archival film and photographs, footage from the U.S. drone that was overhead during the operation, and contemporary hyper-realist film photography of the “garrison” of Tivoli Gardens, the films encourage viewers to think about how people negotiate the entanglements among nationalist governments, imperialist practices, and local articulations with illicit international trades but raising a number of questions: What does it mean to be human in the wake of the plantation? How do people confront the pressures of colonialism and slavery, nationalism and state formation? What forms of community and expectation are produced in and through violence? In what ways can we meaningfully bear witness to these processes?
Program 2: John L. Jackson, Jr.
Making Sweet Tea (2021, 89m) chronicles the journey of southern-born, black gay researcher and performer E. Patrick Johnson as he travels home to North Carolina to come to terms with his past, and to Georgia, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. to reconnect with several black gay men he interviewed for his book, Sweet Tea. Johnson transformed that book into several staged plays over the course of a decade, and the film combines footage from his past performances of the men with documentary moments from their lives a decade after the book's publication. The film also focuses on Johnson’s life in the south while showing how the men have changed since - and been changed by - their depictions in his book and plays. The film covers the subtle complexities of Johnson’s relationships with these men, with his family, and with his hometown in North Carolina. The film also restages Johnson’s performances of the men’s narrative in their homes, in their churches, and on their jobs, sometimes with them directing him or even participating in the scene. Blurring the line between art and life, the film offers a rare glimpse into the lives of people rarely given a platform to speak and demonstrates how research, artistry, and life converge.
Registration: No registration required
Location: Wijnhaven room 3.48, Leiden University in The Hague
