USA / 2008 / 86mins / Documentary / English

Katrina Browne uncovers her New England family's deep involvement in the slave trade and, in so doing, reveals the pivotal role slavery played in the growth of the whole American economy. The film follows Browne and nine fellow family members as they retrace the steps of the Triangle Trade, visiting Bristol, Rhode Island, slave forts on the coast of Ghana, and the ruins of the family’s former plantation in Cuba. Back home, the Browne family confronts the thorny topic of what to do now, in the context of growing calls for reparations for slavery.

Katrina Browne

Katrina Browne produced and directed Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, and founded the Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery. Prior to launching this film and family process, Katrina served as Outreach Planning Coordinator for the film adaptation of Anna Deavere Smith’s play Twilight: Los Angeles. Previously she was a senior staff-person at Public Allies, an AmeriCorps program operating in twenty-one cities that she co-founded in 1991. She has an M.A. in Theology from the Pacific School of Religion where she wrote a thesis on film and democratic dialogue. She lives in Washington, D.C. Learn More

Alla Kovgan

Born in Moscow in 1973, Alla Kovgan has been sharing her time between Russia and the US since 1996 making films, installations, and stage intermedia performances in collaboration with artists from different disciplines as well as teaching and curating dance film and avant-garde cinema around the world. Her breakthrough film Nora (36', 2008), co-directed with David Hinton and based on true stories of a Zimbabwe-born choreographer Nora Chipaumire, received 30 awards in every kind of genre (fiction, documentary, video art). After being broadcast on ARTE, PBS, TV3 (Spain), NRK (Norway) and SVT (Sweden) and presented at over 200 festivals and venues including MoMA, Louvre and Tate Modern, it was selected to represent the US at Input 2011. Alla also co-directed, wrote and edited Emmy-nominated Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North (2007) and Movement (R)evolution Africa (2007). Her award documentary Cunningham, about the life of Merce Cunningham was released in 2019. Learn More

Jude Ray

Jude Ray is an award-winning filmmaker of social issue, cultural, and historical documentaries and investigative reports. She co-directed the film Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, with Alla Kovgan and Katrina Browne. She also served as the film’s executive producer. She has served as Senior Writer and Consulting Producer for many independent feature docs, including H-2 Worker, chronicling the lives of migrant workers (Grand Jury Prize, Sundance, New Directors/New Films) and Calling the Ghosts: A Story about Rape, War, and Women about the victims of mass rape in Bosnia (Sundance/Soros Fund, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, theatrical distribution, HBO/Cinemax). Ms. Ray is a Recipient of the National Women in Broadcast and Radio Award and numerous grant awards, including the Kheil Fund, NEH, Funding Exc Learn More