A STORY OF BONES: Salem Film Fest

Showing at Cinema Salem for Salem Film Fest

The remote United Kingdom island of St. Helena is best known as the place where Napoleon spent his final years in exile and was ultimately buried. His grave is beautifully maintained and serves as the island’s biggest tourist attraction. To encourage tourism, St. Helena decides to build its first commercial airport.

But when Chief Environmental Officer Annina van Neel arrives from Namibia to help with the troubled project, she bears witness as the remains of thousands of African slaves are uncovered in a mass burial site, one of the most significant traces of the transatlantic slave trade still on earth. Haunted by this historical injustice, she campaigns tirelessly for proper memorialisation of these forgotten victims. The resistance she encounters exposes disturbing truths about the UK’s colonial past and present.

A Q&A with Film Subject and Producer Peggy King Jorde follows the screening at Cinema Salem.