www.gullahgeecheegroup.com
Report on Films for the Proposed
Gullah Geechee Cultural, Arts & Film Festival
Wikipedia source of film titles:
Title/Year/Time: Bin Yah: There's No Place Like Home (2008), 56 mins., Documentary
Owns/Distributes: ChasDOC, Inc.
Synopsis: “Bin Yah: There’s No Place Like Home” is a documentary that explores the potential loss of important historic African American communities in Mt. Pleasant, S.C due to growth and development.
Through the testimonies of the residents themselves, the film explores the culture, the history, the importance of land and the concept of home, giving a voice to those who seldom have had a chance to be heard. Many residents are artisans and craftspeople, practicing traditional skills including sweetgrass basketmaking, brought over from West Africa and handed down from mothers and fathers to sons and daughters.
Licensing Fee: $125
Contact Info: Executive Director, Justin Nathanson, justin@thecutcompany.com, http://www.thecutcompany.com/
Title/Year/Time: There is a River (2003)
Owns/Distributes: PBS / W. Noland Walker
Synopsis: “There is a River” explores the spiritual traditions African-Americans brought to America, and visits a community where they live still: among the Gullah people of St. John’s Island, near Charleston,
South Carolina.
Licensing Fee: Free with purchase of video as long as you do not charge admission for viewing.
Contact Info: W. Noland Walker, noland@airmedia.org, https://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/about/episode_1.html
Title/Year/Time: The Language You Cry In (1998), 53 mins.
Owns/Distributes: Inko Producciones SL. & Taller de Imagen de la Universidad de Alicante S.A.
Synopsis: The Language You Cry In tells an amazing scholarly detective story reaching across hundreds of years and thousands of miles, from 18th century Sierra Leone to the Gullah people of present-day
Georgia. It shows how African Americans have retained powerful links to their African past despite the horrors of the Middle Passage and the long years of slavery and segregation.
Licensing Fee: $49
Contact Info: http://newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0053

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Films, cont. -2-
Title/Year/Time: Home Across the Water (1992), 27 mins.
Owns/Distributes: Benjamin Shapiro
Synopsis: “Home Across the Water” is a social justice film about the efforts of Sea Islanders in South
Carolina and Georgia to preserve their cultural identity and cope with the development of the islands as exclusive resorts. The film includes the history of the Gullah culture and examples of efforts at continuing it.
Licensing Fee: I am waiting to hear back from Mr. Shapiro. The average license for public performance is $200 - $400.
Contact Info: Ben Shapiro, bshapiro@well.com
Title/Year/Time: Daughters of the Dust (1991), 112 mins., Fiction
Owns/Distributes: Kino International
Synopsis: “Daughters of the Dust” tells the story of a large African-American family as it prepares to move North at the dawn of the 20th Century. In addition to this emotionally charged epic drama,
Daughters Of The Dust explores the unique culture of the Gullah people, descendants of slaves who lived in relative isolation on the Sea Islands off the Georgia coast. As the generations struggle with the decision to leave, their rich Gullah heritage and African roots rise to the surface.
Licensing Fee: $349.00
Contact Info: http://www.kinolorber.com/video.php?id=78
Title/Year/Time: Family Across the Sea (1990), 57 mins., Documentary
Owns/Distributes: South Carolina Educational Television
Synopsis: “Family Across the Sea” shows how scholars have uncovered the remarkable connections between the Gullah people of South Carolina and the people of Sierra Leone. The ancestors of the
Gullah were African slaves brought to the Sea Islands because of their expertise in rice cultivation.
Family Across The Sea documents how the Gullahs incorporated many aspects of African culture in the daily life of the plantations.
Licensing Fee: ~$300. Carrie, the VP of Content knows the exact price and will return to the office
Tuesday, May 13, 2014.
Contact Info: ETV Marketing Department at 803-737-3200

www.gullahgeecheegroup.com
Films, cont. -3-
Title/Year/Time: When Rice Was King (1990), documentary
Owns/Distributes: South Carolina Educational Television
Synopsis: “When Rice Was King” is about the cultivation of rice in South Carolina began in the late
1600s. By the time of the American Revolution, it had created the largest concentration of wealth in the
American colonies. The knowledge and labor of slaves from Africa’s Windward Coast were major factors in the making of this wealth. However, South Carolina’s rice culture experienced heavy tolls due to the
Civil War, emancipation and hurricanes. Its passing, along with that of the grand cotton plantations, ended a way of life. The economic and social impact of the state’s rice culture created a legacy that remains..
Licensing Fee: ~$300. Carrie, the VP of Content knows the exact price and will return to the office
Tuesday, May 13, 2014.
Contact Info: ETV Marketing Department at 803-737-3200
Title/Year/Time/Type: Gullah Tales (1988), 20 mins, fiction
Owns/Distributes: Gary Moss / Georgia State University. Office of Educational Media.
Synopsis: “Gullah Tales” is a film fable for all ages as well as a delightful introduction to the origins of
Gullah, on of America's most fascinating subcultures and dialects. Set in the rural South on a Sea Island plantation around 1830, the tales are spun by an old slaver storyteller who entertains plantation children with folktales.
Licensing Fee: TBD.
Contact Info: Andrea , Marketing Department , (404) 413-2000
Title/Year/Time: Conrack (1974), 107 mins., Fiction
Owns/Distributes: 20th Century Fox
Synopsis: “Conrack” is a 1974 film based on the 1972 autobiographical book The Water Is Wide. The story follows a young teacher, Pat Conroy, in 1969 assigned to isolated "Yamacraw Island" off the coast of South Carolina and populated mostly by poor black families. He finds out that the children as well as the adults have been isolated from the rest of the world and speak a dialect called Gullah, with
"Conrack" of the novel's title being the best they can do to pronounce his last name. The school has only two rooms for all grades combined, with the Principal teaching grades one through four and Conroy teaching the higher grades. Conroy discovers that the students aren't taught much and will have litthope of making a life in the larger world.
Licensing Fee: $250
Contact Info: (310) 203-1798

www.gullahgeecheegroup.com
Films, cont. -4-
Title/Year/Time:
Florida Crossroads: Florida’s Underground Railroad (2012)
Owns/Distributes: The Florida Channel
Synopsis: Centuries before a secret network was formed to help slaves escape to Northern states and
Canada, The Underground Railroad ran South. As early as 1587, Spain’s La Florida was recorded to be a safe haven for freedom seekers resisting enslavement. In this Florida Crossroads, we remember those
Southern Routes to Freedom and the unique group of African descendants called Gullah Geechee who are still fighting to preserve their identity in America today.
Licensing Fee: Note: “ Programming produced on The Florida Channel cannot be used for political, campaign or commercial purposes.”
Contact Info: (850) 488-1281

GGG Source: www.gullahgeecheegroup.com
Report on Films for the Proposed Gullah Geechee Cultural, Arts & Film Festival
Title/Year/Time: Black Miami, A Documentary (2012), 57 mins., Documentary
Owns/Distributes: Carlton Smith / Michael Williams
Synopsis: “Black Miami, A Documentary” takes you on a journey through history to learn of the importance and significance that blacks played in the creation and progress of Florida and Miami. The
Black Miami revisits the past to understand how the race lines in South Florida were created and eventually transcended.
Licensing Fee: $500
Contact Info: Carltonsmith1975@yahoo.com
Title/Year/Time: The Oblivion Tree, Documentary
Owns/Distributes: Nordluck D'Orange
Synopsis: A Haitian filmmaker traveled to West Africa looking for his roots. He found at the other side of the ocean a true version of the Slave Trade and the unknown, ignored, destroyed pages of Haiti's history. He found also in his home country how heirs of the Dahomean culture in Haiti are keeping alive the memory of the Middle Passage within some Vodoun rituals specially at Souvenance, Haiti
Licensing Fee: TBD
Contact Info: Margaret Mitchell Armand, Healing in the Homeland: Haitian Vodou Tradition
Title/Year/Time: 44 Daze: Managing a City Crisis on a Worldwide Scale (2014), Documentary. 45:28 mins
Owns/Distributes: Sherry Suttles
Synopsis: The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman occurred on February 26, 2012 in the community of Sanford, Florida. The incident caused huge waves throughout the world and raised many questions about the approach that was taken by the city officials of Sanford while investigating the incident. This documentary focuses on the 44 days directly after the shooting and the mounting pressure from around the nation that finally led to the arrest and charging of Zimmerman. The issues of social justice and judicial and municipal efficiency that were raised during this period are examined through in-depth interviews with Sanford city council and law enforcement officials.
Licensing Fee: tbd Contact Info: 954-457-2047, http://www.44daze.com
; Co-Producer Kamau Suttles
and VALA: The Power of Black Of Black Students at Columbia University, 1968-2008; 2008; 33 mins.
Title/Year/Time 2010 Stay in Da Boat Contact: Elder Carlie Towne, Gullah Geechee Nation, Charleston
VARIOUS: Kuratabisha X Ali-Rashid, Republic of New Africa, NCOBRA, Miami.
VARIOUS: Alada Shinault-Small, aka Muima Maat, Charleston, SC
VARIOUS: Griffin Lotson, Georgia Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters, Darien, Georgia
REPORT prepared by Shannon Clarke/Keith Clarke, www.miamifilmandjazzsociety.com
.

www.gullahgeecheegroup.com
ALADA Shinault-Small Gullah Gechee Films Linked In 5-21-14
2006
Audiobook; Narrator of Track 2, "A Deal With The Devil," a re-interpretation of John Bennett's 1921 "Madame
Margot, A Grotesque Legend of Old Charleston"; voice of Lavinia Fisher in Track 6, "Mass Murder At The Six
Mile Inn"; Produced by J.R. Elder; recorded, mixed and mastered at Island Sounds Studio, SC
2006
Consultant, Lifetime Channel movie, teleplay based on the novel by the same name
2003
Consultant for Vol. 1, "The Downward Spiral," PBS series produced by WNET, NY
2002
ConsultaAnt, an HGTV feature story
Alada Shinault-Small
TapSnap 1002 Photo Entertainment

W. Marvin Dulaney
-2-
2000
Producer; An overview of the Center and its history for visitors to view prior to their tour, for gifting to potential sponsors and benefactors, and for selling in the Center's gift shop; VHS, 10 min.
1999
Consultant for Episode 1, "There is a River," PBS series produced by Blackside Productions/WGBH

www.gullahgeecheegroup.com
1998
Co-producer; Rural Area Economic Development, Inc., Executive Producer; Sa Hera Maa Enterprises & Video
Records, Inc., Producers; Funded by the SC Arts Commission; short documentary highlighting African American history and culture in the Mt. Pleasant, SC area and the Florida Seminoles' cultural sojourn to Sullivan's Island, SC;
VHS, 23 min.
2 team members

Alada Shinault-Small
TapSnap 1002 Photo Entertainment

Pete B. Peters
1996
Co-producer, Sa Hera Maa Enterprises and Video Records, Inc., Producers; short documentary highlighting
Denmark Vesey's planned 1822 slave insurrection, Emanuel AME Church, Sweetgrass Basketry and Charleston's
19-20th century street vendors; VHS, 50 min; Updated and digitized, 2010, 47 min.
2 team members

Alada Shinault-Small
TapSnap 1002 Photo Entertainment

Pete B. Peters
1996
Consultant for “Causes of the Civil War,” Vol. 8; “The Civil War,” Vol. 9; “Reconstruction & Segregation, 1865-
1910,” Vol. 10, educational series produced by Schlessinger Video Productions