Freedom hill3/16/2023 Resita has worked with Kartemquin Films as the Impact Producer on their Emmy-nominated docu-series produced with The Marshall Project, We Are Witnesses. With a degree in journalism from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Resita started her career as a storyteller in TV news as a reporter in North Carolina and later in Chicago. Born and raised in the South, her films center Southern, Black communities and use them as a lens to examine topics ranging from environmental justice to racial justice. Her documentary film work is people based, meaning it not only features unique, personal stories, but it also prioritizes relationships and is constantly working to reimagine an equitable filmmaking model. Resita Cox’s films are a poetic portrayal of her community’s irrepressible spirit and resilience in the face of racism. The documentary uses Princeville, its residents and Marquetta’s journey back home as vehicles to examine what that responsibility, and lack thereof, looks like. and how the refusal to reckon with its own history still impacts and extends into the lives and lands of Black Americans today. Freedom Hill uncovers the continuing legacy of racism in the U.S. Princeville, a main character itself, is brought to life through several vignettes: see the town organize a car caravan for Irene Jones’ 106th birthday celebration walk through Helen Heath-Winstead’s abandoned house as she reminisces on family gatherings, holidays and birthday parties in a home that is no more. Freedom Hill is a short documentary that explores the environmental racism that is washing away the town of 2,000 through the lens of Marquetta Dickens, a Princeville native who recently moved back to help save her hometown and whose grandmother casted the historic vote in 99’ as mayor against the federal and state government’s recommendation to simply move the town elsewhere. The historical town has been inundated with flooding over the centuries. Resting along the floodplain of the river, Princeville residents are no strangers to adversity. Before its incorporation, residents called it ‘Freedom Hill,’ gradually establishing a self-sufficient town. After the Civil War, this indifference left it available for freed Africans to settle. ![]() ![]() In the 1800’s this land was disregarded and deemed uninhabitable by white people. Princeville sits atop swampy land along the Tar River in North Carolina.
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