OFFICIAL SELECTION

“BEFORE 1619: SHE TOOK JUSTICE” Written by GLORIA J. BROWNE-MARSHALL (US)

Title: Before 1619: She Took Justice documentary short film adapted from the book She Took Justice: The Black Woman, Law, and Power by Gloria J. Browne-Marshall.

BIO:

Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is an EMMY Award-winning writer, professor of constitutional law, filmmaker, social justice attorney, and playwright. Her film Dreams of Emmett Till received the American Film Award and over twenty festival awards. SHOT: Caught a Soul received a Pulitzer Center grant and several festival awards including best actor.

Gloria was a Visiting Professor at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at HKS, focused on creativity, activism, and public policy. A Protest History of the United States is her forthcoming book due in April 2025. She has appeared on CNN International, BBC, and other media giving legal commentary. Gloria Browne-Marshall is narrator and producer of Before 1619: She Took Justice.

“BEFORE 1619: SHE TOOK JUSTICE” Written by GLORIA J. BROWNE-MARSHALL (GENRE: EPIC Historical Adaption)

LOGLINE:

(Documentary Short) Travel to Angola to experience the diplomat and warrior Queen Nzingha who, in 1622, negotiated a peace treaty with the Portuguese, led men into battle, lived to be 80-years-old and, today, has the power to create bonds of kinship and healing.

STORY SYNOPSIS:

Before 1619: She Took Justice is a documentary short film that takes viewers on an intertwining journey through modern Angola and into pre-colonial history Ndongo in search of Queen Nzingha. This film reveals an astonishing diplomat and warrior Queen who was born in 1583 and is still revered for her courageous efforts against the trans-Atlantic slave-trade. Professor Gloria Browne-Marshall’s travel to Angola to write a led to personal discovery and reveals the healing bond Queen Nzingha symbolizes. A powerfully healing bond with the Angolan people despite slavery, colonialism, language barriers, war, and centuries of estrangement.

STORY OUTLINE:

In 2019, African Americans in the United States commemorated the 400th anniversary of the 1619 arrival of Africans in the Virginia Colony. Professor Gloria J. Browne-Marshall led a national committee on the commemoration. Millions of Black Americans held community events and thousands travelled to Africa on a “great return” to the continent to honor those who had been kidnapped and enslaved. Most travelled to Ghana and Senegal but upon realizing that the original twenty Africans arriving in Virginia in 1619 were from Angola, Gloria set her path to write a book that became a film on Queen Nzingha.

Alone, Gloria travelled to Angola, in April 2019, to learn more about the Queen who fought to save her people from slavery and the ancestors forcibly taken. Gloria’s entry into Angola came at a ti