Film phase:Production
SYNOPSIS
Changing Same: The Untitled Racial Justice Project is an immersive, room-scale virtual reality experience where the participant travels through time and space to witness the connected historical experiences of racial terror in America. It’s a respectful, haunting story infused with magical realism and Afrofuturism about the uninterrupted cycle of the history of white racial oppression—past and present.
Changing Same seeks to confront the US’s history of lynching and examine how the US’s legacy of racial violence continues to influence contemporary issues such as mass incarceration, crime and justice. Changing Same uses time-travel and magical realism to enable participants to experience the evolution of racial violence in the US and make connections between the past and present, as well as contemplate how our history of racism continues to have a lasting effect on human conditions in the US today. At the end of the experience, participants travel to an Afrofuturist world to imagine a more equitable future for all, one that is attentive and accountable to the violences of the past.
ABOUT THE DIRECTORS
Michèle Stephenson, pulls from her Panamanian and Haitian roots to tell compelling, personal stories. Her work has appeared on a variety of platforms, including PBS and Showtime. Her film, American Promise, was nominated for three Emmys including Best Documentary. She was recently awarded the Chicken & Egg Award and is a Guggenheim Fellow and Skoll Sundance Storytellers of Change Fellow.
Joe Brewster uses his psychiatrist training to inform the social issues he tackles as a filmmaker. Brewster is a Spirit Award and three-time Emmy Award nominee. His documentary, American Promise, won Jury Prize at Sundance. Brewster’s outreach accomplishments include a BritDoc Prize for developing one of the most innovative impact campaigns.