EXCLUSIVE: We have your first look at After Sherman, the award-winning documentary directed by Jon-Sesrie Goff that opens theatrically in New York on June 2.
The feature from Cargo Film & Releasing premiered at the True/False Film Festival in Missouri last year. “Goff follows his father, a minister, in the aftermath of the 2015 mass shooting at his church in Charleston that left nine African Americans dead to understand how communities of descendants of enslaved Africans use their unique faith as a form of survival as they continue to fight for America to live up to its many unfulfilled promises to Black Americans,” according to a description of the film. “At a time when the fight for racial justice is at the forefront of the national conversation, After Sherman is a moving testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of faith and community in the face of unspeakable tragedy.”
Writing for Documentary magazine, media scholar Patricia Aufderheide called the film “extraordinary… Sometimes an essay, sometimes a poem, sometimes a meditation, sometimes a denunciation and sometimes a celebration, the film sketches out the problem: Black people in America have systematically been stripped of memory and roots.”
In addition to True/False, the documentary has played at numerous film festivals including Tribeca, DOC NYC, the Camden International Film Festival, RiverRun, and the Hot Springs International Film Festival. It won Best Documentary at both the Atlanta Film Festival and Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
The documentary was produced by Blair Dorosh-Walther, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, and Jon-Sesrie Goff.
Goff obtained his undergraduate degree from the New School in New York and his MFA from Duke University. “With extensive experience in media and film production,” his bio notes, “Jon has offered his lens to a variety of projects spanning many genres including award-winning documentaries, including Out in the Night (POV, Logo 2015), Evolution of a Criminal (Independent Lens 2015), and Spit on the Broom (2019), among several other projects.”
Watch the trailer for After Sherman above.