ANATOMY OF A SUCCESS: TRACES OF THE TRADE
In the summer of 2009, I heard of documentary feature titled Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North that had premiered at Sundance and was produced by a local team. The filmmaker was Katrina Browne and this was her first film, a deeply personal undertaking to uncover the complicity of Northern states in the slave trade and the involvement of her own ancestors, the DeWolf family of Bristol. The film follows several family members on a journey through the triangle trade: Rhode Island, Ghana and Cuba, and it powerfully wrestles with long-held stereotypes about slavery and white privilege.
At the time, and with over a decade of experience in the TV and film industries as a screenwriter and producer, I was a new mother and immigrant in Boston. For the first time in my life, I was reluctantly working a full-time day job outside of the film industry. As a newcomer with no contacts in town, I struggled to break into film circles, but refused to give up, helping out at various local film festivals on weekends, and consulting remotely with my former colleagues and partners in Madrid who had multiple successful productions underway. No question that stumbling into Katrina and her film felt like a lifeline. So I pursued it and she hired me, something for which I’ll always be grateful.
When I started working with Traces in our tiny Cambridge office, located in the attic of an old Episcopal church, I was surprised at the flurry of new concepts we were operating with: impact, engagement, reaching audiences directly, content control, film fans, separate revenue streams, etc. This was no ordinary distribution effort or at least nothing like I had experienced before. Katrina had consulted with distribution strategist Peter Broderick who had recently published his iconic article “Welcome to the New World of Distribution,” (September 2008) and then, Declaration of Independence: The Ten Principles of Hybrid Distribution, a year later. We took his advice to heart and applied it to the project for the following five years.
Yes, I said five years. That’s the longest I’ve ever carried on an impact campaign, especially since this all started when impact campaigns didn’t quite have a name, and very few people really knew what an impact producer was. During those years we went on to strategize, engage audiences, dream and build momentum around the film hoping to change the conversation around the role of the North in the slave trade and spark conversations among white people about racism and white privilege. We believed this film was the perfect tool to move the dial in the right direction. There were long months of research and brainstorming, an entire collection of enrichment materials, relationship building, constant press efforts, powerful partners, funders, and many stunning milestones. There were micro accomplishments at the local and even individual level, there were big national achievements, and international ones with a focus on the Caribbean and West Africa, given the story told in the film.
While I don’t remember every detail, these are some of the steps that put the film on a path to success:
The film had kicked off the 21st season of the acclaimed series P.O.V/PBS on June 24, 2008 reaching 1.4 million people, and we fought to ensure multiple rebroadcasts at local stations that spanned several years.
Under my watch, the film booked over 250 national and international screenings at schools, universities, museums, cinemas, conferences and faith-based venues followed by live conversations with Katrina, subjects and experts.
The film’s research team was nominated for a 2009 Emmy Award®.
Screened at over 35 film festivals worldwide including Woods Hole, IDFA, Newport, Hot Docs, Human Rights Watch, American Documentary Showcase, etc. as well as the Southern Circuit, a beautiful initiative put forth by the Southern Arts Federation.
Because we had built a huge fan base for the film, we were able to fulfill hundreds of DVD sales in three different editions, including a Spanish-subtitled edition. Self-fulfillment kicked in full gear after Neoflix, which at the time was in charge of our DVD distribution, stopped making payments.
Packaged special add-ons for DVD editions such as a short film titled “Repairing the Breach,” and extensive discussion guides and materials for schools, faith based institutions and corporations, many of them both in English and Spanish.
Secured three additional broadcast deals in Bermuda: CITV, 2010, Canada: Canadian Broadcast System local stations, and Cuba: Cuban television, 2010.
Ultimately the campaign was so large and successful, Katrina founded a non-profit organization that housed our efforts in the long term: The Tracing Center. This model has been replicated multiple times since then, but at the time it was quite innovative and took the film above and beyond other social-issue documentaries helping drive enormous amounts of engagement, awareness, impact and action. At that point we were able to offer a large menu of events that went beyond a screening and Q&A, including lectures, workshops, professional trainings, key notes, and much more. All of them geared towards going deeper in educating communities and raising awareness about the film’s message.
Years later, Traces of the Trade achieved yet another huge win. On June 19, 2019 (about ten years after my first encounter with the film) Katrina was invited to serve as a witness speaking in support of a historic bill sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee that called for a national commission to study the history of slavery and its harmful legacies up to the present day. A hearing took place in a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee on H.R. 40 and that same week Katrina’s comments during her testimony became quotation of the day in The New York Times: “It is good for the soul of a person, a people and of a nation to set things right.”
And as the impressive impact of Traces of the Trade shows, impact distribution is good for filmmakers and audiences around the world.