Maine Movements for Black Life: a Documentary Film Series
Over the past year, the Movement for Black Lives has transformed many people’s understanding of policing, race, and inequality, as well as challenged our sense of what is possible. This movement has swept through many Maine towns and cities and posed important questions relevant to the Colby campus community. Moved by these mass mobilizations, Associate Professor Maple Razsa taught Global Studies 227: Visual Ways of Knowing (a Humanities Lab cross-listed in African American Studies, Anthropology, and Cinema Studies) as part of wider efforts to document these struggles at Colby and across Maine.
In the Fall of 2020, students in this course created short documentary films to learn from and contribute to movements for racial justice. Guided by antiracist and Black radical interventions, movements, and theorizing, students highlighted Black experiences in Maine through collaboration and partnerships with local organizations, activists, artists, and other community members. Some of the featured organizations and Maine residents in the films include Maine Inside Out, Maine Youth Justice, Malaga Island, Arabella LaDessé, and Ashley Page.
This class was further made possible by the generous support of African American Studies, the Center for Arts and Humanities, Global Studies, and the Office of Engagement and Community Partnerships.
The films’ themes resonate with a current exhibition at the Museum, Miracles on the Border: Retablos of Mexican Migrants to the United States. We encourage you to visit the Museum in addition to attending the screenings.
These films will be screened virtually on Zoom for the whole community during select times this spring. Each film will be presented by the filmmaker with a Q&A after the screening. No pre-registration is necessary; please use the provided Zoom links to access the virtual programs.
Black Maine
Friday, April 2, 3–5 pm via Zoom
Reagan Dennis ‘23, Sakina Mustafa ‘22, Vivienne Predock ‘22
- Black experiences at Colby [shorts] by Reagan Dennis ‘23 – Carmen: I Love My Room (2 min); Muna: Get Ready With Me (3 min); Sally: To Whom Does the Art and the Artist Belong (4 min)
- Black experiences in Maine by Sakina Mustafa ‘22 (8 min) – This film compiles interviews with a number of Black folks in different locations around the state reflecting on their experiences living in Maine.
- Malaga Island by Vivienne Paddock ‘22 (8 min) – This film artistically examines the often overlooked history of Malaga Island, the site of an autonomous interracial community from the Civil War to 1911 when the residents were forcibly evicted by the state. The film is formatted into three chapters, including a visual poem and an archival review of official state documentation of the evictions
Don’t miss the other films in this series:
- Abolition and Incarceration – Thursday, April 8, 5:30–7 p.m.
- Art and Expression – Thursday, April 22, 5:30–7 p.m.