Netflix Sets Sundance Award-Winning Doc ‘Descendant’ for October Release (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comAngelique Jackson Following news that the award-winning documentary “Descendant” will screen as an official selection at the 60th New York Film Festival, Variety can exclusively announce that the film will launch Oct.
21 on Netflix and in select theaters.Directed by Margaret Brown (“The Order of Myths,” “Be Here to Love Me: Townes Van Zandt,” “The Great Invisible”), the documentary 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 ship illegally carrying enslaved Africans to the United States.
The ship arrived in America 40 years after African slave trading became a capital offense. It was promptly burned and its existence denied, but now, as the documentary’s logline explains, “after a century shrouded in secrecy and speculation, descendants of the Clotilda’s survivors are reclaiming their story.” The documentary made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it won the U.S.
special jury award for creative vision. Shortly thereafter, Netflix acquired worldwide rights to the film, with Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground signing on to present the feature alongside the streamer and Participant.“I have been humbled and honored to spend four years with the residents of Africatown as they seek justice and reconciliation for what happened in 1860, and what is still happening today,” Brown said in a statement announcing the acquisition.
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