{"id":5422,"date":"2022-08-05T06:53:55","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T06:53:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/?p=5422"},"modified":"2022-08-13T06:59:05","modified_gmt":"2022-08-13T06:59:05","slug":"deadline-descendant-080522","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/deadline-descendant-080522\/","title":{"rendered":"Barack & Michelle Obama Make Surprise Appearance In Support Of \u2018Descendant\u2019 Documentary At MVAAFF"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Logo<\/p>\n

Barack & Michelle Obama Make Surprise Appearance In Support Of \u2018Descendant\u2019 Documentary At MVAAFF: <\/h1>\n

Martha\u2019s Vineyard African American Film Festival\u2019s kicked off Friday night with documentary film Descendant, from Netflix and Barack and Michelle Obama\u2019s Higher Ground Productions, and the former President and First Lady were the opening night\u2019s surprise guests.<\/p>\n

Directed by Margaret Brown, Descendant, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, follows members of Africatown, a small community in Alabama, as they share their personal stories and community history as descendants of the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to illegally transport human beings as cargo from Africa to America.<\/p>\n

When the film was initially introduced by festival founders Stephanie and Floyd Rance, they brought out the director, who introduced Oscar winner Ahmir \u201cQuestlove\u201d Thompson. He spoke briefly before inviting his \u201cfriends\u201d on stage. Those friends happened to be the Obamas who have a home in Martha\u2019s Vineyard.<\/p>\n

Michelle Obama first spoke about the importance of tapping into our heritage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to encourage our young people to reach out to our elders that are existing,\u201d she said. \u201cInstead of taking photos of your food, how about talking to grandma or great grandma and ask them some of those questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

She went on to talk about the documentary and its message. \u201cDescendant reminds us of the power of the stories that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next, President Obama spoke to the crowd about why it\u2019s essential that the descendants of the Clotilda and their stories are heard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis documentary captures an important chapter in our history\u2014one that\u2019s too often distorted, forgotten, or buried.\u201d He then addressed the subject of the documentary, Africatown and why they aim to connect with their past.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the people of Africatown this represented a story of pain and extraordinary hardship, but also a story of strength, resilience, and overcoming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stacey Abrams, Rev. Al Sharpton, and former Atlanta Mayor Kesha Lance Bottoms also made an appearance at the screening.<\/p>\n

Descendant explores implications of the Clotilda\u2019s discovery for the descendants, who grapple with their heritage while claiming the power to shape their own destinies, won an American Jury Special Award for Creative Vision at Sundance.<\/p>\n

View this article at Deadline<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barack & Michelle Obama Make Surprise Appearance In Support Of \u2018Descendant\u2019 Documentary At MVAAFF: Martha\u2019s Vineyard African American Film Festival\u2019s kicked off Friday night with documentary film Descendant, from Netflix and Barack and Michelle Obama\u2019s Higher Ground Productions, and the former President and First Lady were the opening night\u2019s surprise guests. Directed by Margaret Brown,
+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":326,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,32,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-deadline","category-michelle-chang","category-sean-pope"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5422"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5424,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5422\/revisions\/5424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}