Acts of Reparation
**Seen for the 2025 Atlanta Film Festival
If we are white in the United States, I think we owe it to ourselves to really reckon with the history of white supremacy that this country was built on. In this documentary, filmmaker Macky Alston is wrestling with that in terms of his own family while his collaborator, Selina Lewis Davidson, is working to look into her family’s history. “Acts of Reparation” is a way of looking at the past to make the future better, both on a personal level, and a larger societal level, by illuminating the history of racism and segregation in this country in a way that could educate people moving forward.
Reparations are “measures by the government to repair violations of human rights by providing a range of material and symbolic benefits to victims or their families, as well as affected communities and society as a whole.” This is not just about financial reparations, but various acts that shine a light on past injustices, and attempt to address modern forms of discrimination and racial segregation. Here, we not only get journeys of discovery of family histories, but we also see a chance illuminate the past, and to give respect to those forgotten by history when a family home- and a long-forgotten graveyard- have a chance at new life.
Davidson and Alston give us interviews with their respective family members as they go through their personal histories, their ancestors’ lives, and try to get to the core of what this idea of reparations means to them. For Alston, who is white, it means digging into their family’s legacy, and they can do to bring injustices to light. For Davidson, who is black, it means figuring out her family’s legacy as a way of seeing what reparations are “legally” owed them, but also shining a light on the lives that history forgot. It all comes down to the pink house, and the graveyard mentioned above. The filmmakers are collaborators on this journey, and have a common goal in mind, even if their respective journeys are different. As a film, “Acts of Reparation” does not do anything particularly distinctive in sharing this story; it’s the story itself that matters, and Alston and Davidson- as filmmakers and subjects- make it an emotional one to watch unfold, while also showing us that there is more to be done, and what we might be able to do on our ends.
