USA / 2014 / 57mins / Documentary, History / English and Mende

In 1839, a small group of enslaved Africans rose up and seized their ship (the Amistad), and sailed it from the north coast of Cuba to Long Island, where they were captured by the American navy, charged with "piracy and murder," and jailed in Connecticut. American abolitionists flocked to the jail, where they formed an alliance with the Africans. The rebels returned home to their native Sierra Leone in triumph in 1842. Ghosts of Amistad chronicles a journey to Sierra Leone in 2013 to interview village elders about local memory of the Amistad rebellion, to search for the long-lost ruins of the slave-trading factory Lomboko, and to recover a lost history from below in the struggle against slavery.

Tony Buba

Tony Buba has made a wide array of films including four features exploring working-class issues in and around his hometown since 1974. Buba began his career with The Braddock Chronicles, a dozen short documentary portraits of the stubborn signs of life in a dying mill town. Buba’s work has been showcased in one-person shows at The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Anthology Film Archives, The Carnegie Museum of Art and more than 100 museums and universities. His awards include fellowships from the NEA, AFI, and the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations. Buba’s many awards include Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award and Pennsylvania Media Artist of the Year. Learn More