We are now in the midst of POV’s twenty-first season, which means four months of daring, moving, illuminating and, in some cases, harrowing films. This year, for example, the PBS series, which features fourteen to sixteen independent documentary films every summer to fall, will include Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North by Katrina Browne. The film is an account of Browne and her relatives tracing their family history back to the slave trade, and finding that they were the biggest slave trading family in the North.
In making the film, Browne underwent a complete change of perspective. “I was shocked, but realized immediately that I already knew about my family’s role in the slave trade, but had somehow buried it,” she said in a statement for POV. “So the bigger shock was what I was now discovering: my amnesia [italics hers].”
Browne’s is a situation where a change in perspective is crucial not only to the film but to the cause. “ ... [W]hile in seminary, I wrote a master’s thesis on Aristotle’s theories on the power of Greek tragedies to create empathy and emotional catharses that can lead citizens to better judgment on civic and political affairs,” she said. “Having worked in Washington, this resonated with my growing sense that internal transformation is as important as external transformation.” Such is the case for most political and human rights related films—making them is a learning process—but in the meantime it’s important not to let the subject matter overwhelm you and take over your life. Reverend Ginny Dempsey of Briarcliff Baptist Church in Atlanta says that in any career, forgetting to nurture a personal life is common. “Many times people make the mistake of allowing their career to become their personal life,” she says. “It is easy to blur the boundaries between the two and to work more and allow time for friends, family, fun, etc. less.”
Browne found solace by simply including her family in the film. “I told my family members that we should all be prepared to make mistakes, to embarrass ourselves as we felt, and perhaps fumbled our way through the treacherous landscape of slavery, race, and class,” she said. “We’re human, and I wanted to humanize our attempts to get things right.”
