'monumental' is an experimental documentary about toppled statues, Southern history, the legacy of names, the resilience of bricks, the power of poetry, the definition of patriotism, hidden family trees and segregated cemeteries. There is no static history. It lives on, layered in the landscape, painted on the brick mills. Through investigating the ripples of the words and deeds of local postbellum industrialist Julian Shakespeare Carr, paradoxically called “the most generous white supremacist,” and reenacting scenes from the childhood of Pauli Murray, an unsung civil and women’s rights activist, the film scratches away at surfaces of stories about Durham, North Carolina. Careful scrutiny of such surfaces may reveal effaced answers to the questions that history leaves us with today, regarding racial identity and segregation, industrialization and labor, and gentrification and community. As statues topple and new monuments rise, this documentary invites consideration of where have we been, where we are now, and where we are going.
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This trailer features Kennedy Berryman reading an excerpt from Dark Testament by Pauli Murray and excerpts of interviews with Conrad Odell Pearson, Viola Turner and Pauli Murray, held in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The filmmaker would like to thank the people who consented to participate in monumental and the archival rights holders who consented to the representation of those who have passed away.
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TRT: 35 min.
Supported by a 2018 Princess Grace Award for Film. Completed as part of thesis for MFA in Experimental and Documentary Art from Duke University.
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Featuring Kennedy Berryman
Original music composed by Russell Favret: instagram.com/russellfavret/
Sound Mixing by Michael A. Betts, II (www.michaelbettsii.com)
Archival images courtesy of (1) The Julian Shakespeare Carr Papers #141, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and (2) The North Carolina Collection, Durham County Library.
Oral histories featuring Conrad Odell Pearson, Viola Turner, and Pauli Murray courtesy of Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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