Making African Heritage Accessible to All
About The Film
As the Environmental Officer for Saint Helena’s troubled £285m ($360m) airport project, Annina Van Neel learned of the island’s most terrible atrocity – an unmarked mass burial ground of an estimated 9,000 formerly enslaved Africans in Rupert’s Valley. It is one of the most significant traces of the transatlantic slave trade still on earth. Haunted by this historical injustice, Annina now fights alongside renowned African American preservationist Peggy King Jorde and a group of disenfranchised islanders – many of them descendants of the formerly enslaved – for the proper memorialisation of these forgotten victims. The resistance they face exposes disturbing truths about the UK’s colonial past and present.
Community Screenings
The film ‘A Story of Bones’ humanises the act of reclaiming and protecting cultural heritage, by investigating colonial and institutionalised barriers and allowing for meaningful connection to shared histories and spaces.
Screening the film with descendant communities bridges the distance between the memory (colonialism, enslavement, genocide etc) and the land (burial grounds, artefacts, history) with a lens that reveals and eliminates repressive structures, and in doing so provides reconnection to a priceless resource.
Burial Grounds tie us to each other, to ourselves, the land, time and memory. They are a powerful and precious gift from our ancestors to not only heal the past, but to connect and heal humanity in the present.
The film introduces social justice issues like land rights, access to cultural heritage as a human right, restorative justice, reparations and the long-awaited restitution of African Heritage. It also creates opportunities for mobilisation and networking of activists, descendants and the great African diaspora.
Past Screenings:
Upcoming Screenings:
Discussion Guide
This guide is an invitation to dialogue. It is based on a belief in the power of human connection and is designed for people who want to use A Story of Bones to engage family, friends, classmates, colleagues, and communities. In contrast to initiatives that foster debates in which participants try to convince others that they are correct, this document envisions conversations undertaken in a spirit of openness in which people try to understand one another and expand their thinking by sharing viewpoints and listening actively. The discussion prompts are intentionally crafted to help a wide range of audiences think more deeply about the issues in the film. Rather than attempting to address them all, choose one or two that best meet your needs and interests. And be sure to leave time to consider taking action. Planning the following steps can help people leave the room feeling energized and optimistic, even in instances when conversations have been difficult. Author Peggy King Jorde
