WE HAVE JUST BEGUN (2023)
Deep in the Arkansas Delta lies the legacy of the deadliest race or labor battle in American history: the 1919 Elaine Riot, Massacre, and Dispossession—hidden and obscured for over 100 years. The following account comes from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette: “On the night of Sept. 30, 1919, about 100 or more people, mostly Black sharecroppers who worked on the plantations of white landowners, gathered at a rural church. The purpose of the meeting, called by the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America, was to strategize about ways to obtain better prices and more reliable payment for their cotton crops from the white plantation owners. When a car with three white men pulled up to the church, shots were fired. Who fired first is disputed, but one of the white men was killed and another wounded. The next morning an estimated 500 to 1,000 white men armed themselves and descended on Elaine to put down an imagined insurrection. The official line was that a few dozen Black people were killed before order was restored. In reality, white mobs slaughtered many more. The Arkansas Legislature has officially acknowledged a death toll of between 100 and 237 Black people. Arkansas Gazette sales agent Sharpe Dunaway, an eyewitness to the massacre, put the death toll at 856. “We Have Just Begun” suggests the death toll may be even higher. “We Have Just Begun” tells this story economically, with restrained fierceness. It marshals the narration of its co-writer Tongo Eisen-Martin, a San Francisco-based poet, and some stunning animation based on archival photographs by director Michael Warren Wilson and music by Joshua Asante and Brandon Kendricks. Along with this retelling are the testimonies and arguments of many of the descendants of victims and survivors of the massacre, through which we catch a sidelong glimpse of how things have — and haven’t changed.” Not rated. 77 minutes.
ABOUT THE LIVE SCREENING
The screening will be introduced by the filmmakers and presented with live music and narration. Performers Joshua Asante and Tongo Eisen-Martin mix rehearsed sequences with improvisations—incorporating a greater and more generative range of references from the archive of testimonies, evidence and experiences the filmmakers encountered during the making and initial Arkansas exhibitions of the finished film. Each screening is a unique performance of images, sound and spoken word— embodying a database cinema approach to the experience.
KEY PERSONNEL IN ATTENDANCE
Co-Writer/Director/Producer: Michael Warren Wilson
Co-Writer/Co-Narrator/Producer: Tongo Eisen-Martin
Composer/Sound Recordist: Joshua Asante
Event Links
Tickets: https://go.evvnt.com/2800104-0
