The Other Madison included in the Official Selection for the Roxbury International Film Festival 2021. The 23rd Annual Roxbury International Film Festival June 20th. The film will be screened Online and at the Museum of Fine Arts | Boston as part of a presentation of James Hemings: Ghost in America’s Kitchen by Anthony Werhun (USA, 2021]. Tickets On Sale
The Roxbury International Film Festival is the largest festival in New England that celebrates people of color. RoxFilm was founded in 1998 and holds both an annual film festival and year-round screenings and events in the historic Roxbury neighborhood of Boston.
The Other Madisons will be presented Online and at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston as part of a presentation of James Hemings: Ghost in America’s Kitchen by Anthony Werhun. James Hemings is an extraordinary character, America’s culinary founding father and enslaved property of Thomas Jefferson. Its seems all roads lead to Monticello.
THE OTHER MADISONS
The Other Madisons is a remarkable contribution to American history, documenting the process by which an oral tradition preserves, with exquisite fidelity, an important social record, in spite of, or perhaps in response to, suppression or neglect by exclusion, and racism.
In this documentary, Bettye Kearse traces her ancestry to Mandy, her family’s first African ancestor enslaved on American soil and who became the property of President James Madison's estate in Virginia, Montpelier. Kearse's research, her encounters with cultural institutions, and her travels to Ghana, Portugal, Virginia, and Texas provide the contextual background of this genealogical journey. The family mantra: "Always remember—you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president" has now achieved a new level, that of the documentary film experience.