STANLEY NELSON AND FIRELIGHT FILMS TO EXPLORE HISTORY OF
TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE
Four-Part Documentary to Examine Largest Forced Migration in History,
Including Impact on Modern World
CREATING THE NEW WORLD: THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE to Air on PBS as Part of Independent Lens in 2021
(New York, NY) – May
31, 2019 – The acclaimed filmmaker Stanley Nelson and his production
company Firelight Films announced today that
CREATING THE NEW WORLD: THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE will air on PBS in 2021. The four-part documentary will be the final installment in Firelight’s three-part series for
Independent Lens, called America Revisited, which began with THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION (2016)
the first comprehensive historical documentary on the iconic organization,
and TELL THEM WE ARE RISING: THE STORY OF BLACK COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES (2018)
which chronicled the 150 year history and impact of HBCUs. Both films garnered the highest African-American viewership for any Independent Lens broadcast.
This announcement, which Nelson made at the PBS Annual Meeting in Nashville, comes just as the country begins to mark the 400th
anniversary of the arrival of
enslaved Africans to colonial Virginia in August 1619. The date
commemorates the deep impact the transatlantic slave trade would have
upon the founding of the United States.
“The transatlantic
slave trade was a crime against humanity that took place across
centuries and reached every corner of the globe. It’s impossible to
understand the modern world without a grasp of the transatlantic
slave trade,” director Stanley Nelson said. “The business of buying and
selling human beings shaped economic, social and political
institutions; established racial and geographic hierarchies; and
entrenched wealth disparities. In the United States, current
debates about Confederate monuments, reparations for descendants of
enslaved people, and systemic racial inequality can be traced to
enduring fault lines around the legacy of slavery. In order to grapple
with this painful legacy, we must first understand
it.”
In four one-hour
programs, each covering a defined historical period and featuring a
specific voyage as its narrative spine, the series explores the
demographic, economic and moral transformations wrought
by the slave trade, African participation and resistance to the trade,
the business of the trade and the experience of enslaved people at the
heart of the trade. Leveraging the latest scholarship, forensic science
and recently unearthed archival material found
across four continents, the series will challenge widespread popular
misconceptions about the slave trade.
CREATING THE NEW WORLD
will serve as centerpiece of an ambitious audience engagement and
educational campaign beginning in 2019 and continuing through the
broadcast
in 2021 on the public television series, Independent Lens. The
campaign aims to catalyze a new conversation about race; the enduring
legacy of centuries of forced migration, enslavement and subjugation;
and the wealth that was created -- and denied
to African-Americans -- as a result of the trade.
The engagement
campaign will create ongoing opportunities for education, reflection and
engagement through public programming, in high school classrooms, and
online through a robust interactive website. The
campaign will feature partnerships with national and international
organizations, events in ten U.S. cities in collaboration with PBS
stations and cultural and educational institutions, standards-based
curriculum for high school social studies, and resources
for teachers and facilitators leading conversations in local
communities.
Stanley Nelson is among
the premier documentary filmmakers working today. Nelson, a
MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, was awarded an individual Peabody Award for
his body of work in 2016. He has received numerous honors over the
course of his career, including the 2016 Lifetime Achievement
Award from the National Academy of Television Arts Sciences. In 2014,
Nelson received the National Medal in the Humanities from President
Barack Obama.
His latest film MILES DAVIS: BIRTH OF THE COOL,
the definitive look at the life and career of the iconic jazz artist,
debuted at the Sundance Film Festival
in 2019 marking Nelson’s tenth feature to premiere at the prestigious
festival spanning twenty years -- a record for a documentary filmmaker.
Directed by Stanley Nelson and produced by
Nazenet Habtezghi and Hazel Gurland-Pooler, CREATING THE NEW WORLD: THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE
is a PBS Distribution release of a Firelight Films and ITVS production
in association with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Major funding for CREATING THE NEW WORLD: THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE
is provided by Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS, National
Endowment for the Humanities, Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations,
and the Independent Television Service. Principal funding for companion
education and engagement activities from the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundations and the Wyncote Foundation. Firelight
Media is also grateful to Brown University’s Center for the Study of
Slavery and Justice as its resources have been critical in properly
researching this project.
ABOUT FIRELIGHT
Firelight
Media was born in 2000 to address the deficit of films made by and
about diverse communities, particularly people of color. Founded and led
by MacArthur “genius” Fellow Stanley
Nelson and award-winning writer and philanthropy executive Marcia Smith
in Harlem, NY, the organization has gone on to produce over 25 hours of
primetime programming for public television, receive every major
broadcast award, and have its first theatrical
release (The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution).
Through its
Documentary Lab
and Impact Producer Fellowship, Firelight is dedicated to developing
talented documentary
filmmakers that advance underrepresented stories, moving them from the
margins to the forefront of mainstream media through high quality,
powerful productions, and creating opportunities for diverse audiences
to be inspired, educated, and engaged.
ABOUT INDEPENDENT LENS
Independent Lens is
an Emmy® Award-winning weekly series airing on PBS Monday nights at
10:00 PM. The acclaimed series, with Lois Vossen as executive producer,
features documentaries united by the creative
freedom, artistic achievement, and unflinching visions of independent
filmmakers. Presented by ITVS, the series is funded by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American
people, with additional funding from PBS, the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, and
the National Endowment for the Arts. For more visit
pbs.org/independentlens.
