Join us for a virtual screening of the brand new award-winning documentary film A Reckoning in Boston on November 20 followed by a filmmaker panel discussion.
This virtual screening is FREE for Free State Film Society subscribers!
Click here to join the society
Click here to buy a virtual ticket to A Reckoning in Boston + Q&A
In the fall of 2014, Kafi Dixon and Carl Chandler enrolled in a rigorous night course in the humanities at a community center in their Boston neighborhood of Dorchester. Kafi, 44, sharp, witty and restless, dropped out of school at 15. She dreams of starting a land cooperative in Boston for women of color who have experienced trauma and disenfranchisement. Carl, 65, a community elder and doting grandfather, is the class’s intellectual leader. White suburban filmmaker James Rutenbeck comes to Dorchester to document the students’ engagement with their course, but as he is awakened to the violence, racism and gentrification that threaten their place in the city, he is forced to come to terms with his flawed film premise and his own complicity in racist structures. Spending more time listening than filming, James enlists Kafi and Carl as producers of the film. Five years on, despite many personal obstacles, Kafi and Carl arrive at surprising new places in their lives, and, following their lead, James does too. Bringing to light the foundations of systemic racism in one community that has spanned generations, A Reckoning in Boston shows that transformation, healing and social change begins within each of us.
“Don’t miss this powerful film that lays bare the transformative force of the humanities in our lives in these turbulent and troubling times!”
– Cornel West