There are so many great causes out there asking you for money, and in this economy it’s even harder to give. Regardless, I am asking those of you who believe in this film and who have the means to make a donation, even if it is a modest one. Everyone who makes a donation will be credited both on this website and in the end credits as supporters of the project (unless you specifically request anonymity… or wish to give in someone else’s name).

Using the button on the right will take you to PayPal’s secure interface to make a donation. Please note: this film is not affiliated with any non-profit organization, therefor donations likely have no tax benefits. Arzher Productions is the name of my production company (thus the arzher.com email address). Please be sure to include your first and last name and your city to be credited on the site and in the film credits!

Thank you again for all your love and support. Sincerely,

Mike Barber
Director, A Past, Denied: The Invisible History of Slavery in Canada

These past two interviews have been two years in the making. It was late November 2007 when I initially contacted Dr. James Loewen and Dr. Raymond Winbush about being in my documentary. At the time, I figured that finding support for a project such as this one would be relatively easy. I assumed that either the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) or the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) would be eager to participate in the production of a documentary taking aim at confronting the lie in our historical narrative that we are a country free of the racial past that embroils our southern neighbours even to this day. I assumed that I would be ready to begin photography as early as Summer 2008. How naive was I!

So here we are, winter 2009. Progress is being made, slowly but surely. Back in March 2009 I was able, with the great help of Randal Martin, to shoot an interview with Dr. Dorothy Williams (who is featured in the first teaser) in Montreal. These two most recent shoots were made with the help of Adam Reuter (camera op) and Michelle Farrell (Absolute Independent Pictures equipment rental) of the Baltimore area. The world of independent filmmaking is built and sustained by the spirit of co-operation and giving and all three of these individual embody this spirit.

Thursday (3 December, 2009), was my shoot with sociologist and historian James W. Loewen. Dr. Loewen is the author of such great books as “ Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong,” “Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong,” and “Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism” (all three of which I consider to be required reading for anyone and everyone interested in social justice issues or just history in general). Scheduling issues resulted in an interview that was shorter than I would have liked—about 25 minutes total of recorded footage—but I am still thrilled to have had the opportunity to sit down with Loewen and get what I did.

On Saturday (5 December, 2009), was my interview with scholar/activist Raymond Winbush. Dr. Winbush is Director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University, editor of  ”Should America Pay?: Slavery and the Raging Debate on Reparations” and author of “Belinda’s Petition: A Concise History of Reparations for the Transatlantic Slave Trade” and “The Warrior Method: A Parent’s Guide to Rearing Healthy Black Boys”. We sat down for about an hour and a quarter for a fantastic and inspiring interview.

I’m going through the interview material over a very large cafe mocha, drinking in every word along with the coffee-choclate blended goodness. The road ahead is still long. Without any real  financial support at the moment, I rely on my own financial health (for what it is) to keep things going. I will spend some time over the next few weeks cutting something together to present to the Canadian film industry powers-that-be and hope that it will entice them out of their complacency and inaction. Stay tuned.

So my attempt to create the page has failed three times now. After each failure, I followed the “Customer Support team” link because I did, in fact, believe that they were in error to automatically bar my efforts to create a legitimate Page to promote a legitimate film. Twice before this have I filled out their little form, which includes little space for comment. I never heard from the Facebook support team before, and I seriously doubt I will this time.

You may be thinking, “if the word ’slavery’ is causing the issue, why not shorten the Page title to just ‘A Past, Denied’?” It’s a simple and fair question to ask. My answer is also fair and simple: I shouldn’t have to.

Whatever Facebook’s issue is with the title of my film, they should speak up and say what it is.

It’s been a bit of a frustrating time getting this thing out the door. Just when you think it’s all finished, you spot a detail that takes you back a number of steps in order to correct. Was it Lucas or was it Speilberg that said “Movies are never finsied; they are abandoned”?¹ Well, this is only a teaser—a minute and a halfpseudo trailer, if you will—to give you a little taste of what’s going on with this thing. I’m very happy with it and am excited to share it with you.

The teaser is available in four sizes: HD (50 MB), Large (19 MB), Medium (9 MB) and Small (5 MB). QuickTime Player or something else that supports playback of H.264 mp4 files is required.

Download, enjoy and pass it along to your friends. Please spread this video around and help get the word out. In this economy, independent productions—documentaries especially—need all the support they can get!

¹Whoever it was, they were actually riffing off Leonardo da Vinci who originally said “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

Making movies is fun.

So far I have been blogging more on news items regarding racism than I have about the actual film. Filmmaking is a slow and painstaking process (but we love it regardless), so it can be expected that there is more to blog about that is happening in the day-to-day, real-life-o-sphere than about the progress of a currently self-funded, independent documentary.

That said, I’m looking forward to getting a little teaser (not to be confused with a trailer) out in the next week or so. I’m also working on lining up some interviews down in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. are for mid November. I’m not going to let anything out of the bag as to who these people would be or on what they would be discussing on camera. I will say that even if I manage to only get one of the three on camera (during this trip) I will be a very happy man.

Stay tuned.