''Descendant'' is a 2022 American historical

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed by

Margaret Brown Margaret Brown (née Tobin; July 18, 1867 – October 26, 1932), posthumously known as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", was an American socialite and philanthropist. She unsuccessfully encouraged the crew in Lifeboat No. 6 to return to the debris ...

, chronicling the story behind

Africatown Africatown, also known as AfricaTown USA and Plateau, is a historic community located three miles (5 km) north of downtown Mobile, Alabama. It was formed by a group of 32 West Africans, who in 1860 were included in the last known illegal shi ...

in Alabama, and the descendants of the last known enslaved Africans brought to the United States aboard the '' Clotilda''. The film premiered at the

2022 Sundance Film Festival The 2022 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 20 to 30, 2022. Due to COVID-19 pandemic protocol it was to have been a hybrid festival, but on January 5, 2022 it was announced that the in-person components would be scrapped in favor o ...

, where it was picked up for wider distribution by

Higher Ground Productions Higher Ground Productions, also known simply as Higher Ground, is an American production company founded in 2018 by former United States President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama. History In May 2018, the Obamas launched Higher ...

and

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

. It received a theatrical release on October 21, 2022 and was available to stream on Netflix that day as well.

Synopsis

The wreckage of the '' Clotilda'' was found in 2019 in the

Mobile River The Mobile River is located in southern Alabama in the United States. Formed out of the confluence of the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers, the approximately river drains an area of of Alabama, with a watershed extending into Mississippi, Georg ...

of Alabama, and the film explores the community of

and the descendants of some of the last known enslaved Africans that were brought to the United States aboard her 40 years after slavery had already been deemed a capital offense.

Production and release

After the wreckage of the ''Clotilda'' was discovered, director

spent four years with the residents of

examining how the discovery impacted the lives of descendants of the last known slaves brought to the US. Brown also produced the film alongside Kyle Martin and Essie Chambers for

Participant Participation or Participant may refer to: Politics *Participation (decision making), mechanisms for people to participate in social decisions * Civic participation, engagement by the citizens in government * e-participation, citizen participati ...

and Take One Five Entertainment. The film premiered at the

, after which it was picked up by

and

for theatrical and streaming distribution. It continued on the festival circuit at the

SXSW Festival South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, T ...

as a Festival Favorite. The film was released to select theaters and on Netflix on October 21, 2022.

Reception

The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported an approval rating of 100%, with an average score of 8.4/10, based on 63 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "''Descendant'' serves as a fantastically compelling example of how history can be reclaimed -- and a stirring tribute to a resilient community." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, it has a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 88 out of 100 based on 12 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Jake Coyle called it "One of the best films of the year" in his review for the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

Accolades

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, tt16376494 2020s English-language films 2022 documentary films 2020s documentary films American documentary films Films about slavery Higher Ground Productions films Participant (company) films 2022 independent films Sundance Film Festival award winners