By Nadine Matthews
In a recent interview, filmmaker Charlyn Griffith-Oro of the short documentary “The Aunties” told the Amsterdam News, “This film came out of my observations of the aunties over the last almost decade. They expressed wanting to leave behind the legacy that they have explicitly, but also in their actions, in their awareness, and in their presence.”
Credit: Beverly Price photo
The former educator and her wife, Jeannine Kayembe-Oro, co-directed and co-edited “The Aunties,” which features elder mentors, friends, and fellow farmers and climate activists Paulette Greene and Donna Dear, a married couple who met in 1974.
“I made the film to offer them as a possibility model; not just for the LGBTQIA community, but for anyone imagining resisting enslavement, resisting confinement, and open to exploring their freedom,” Griffin-Oro said.
The film started streaming on YouTube on Feb. 17 as part of the Black Public Media (BPM) online series AfroPoP Digital Shorts. It was originally supposed to be just a clip for social media, but “I , there’s no way I can edit 15 hours of footage down to two minutes and do it justice,” Griffin-Oro recalled.
The film was executive-produced by the Center for Cultural Power and its distribution is supported by the Queer Women of Color in Media Arts Project.
The historical symbolism of the film is front and center. It opens with a card with an excerpt from an 1854 letter Harriet Tubman wrote to her brothers. Mt. Pleasant Acres Farms, a 111-acre farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, is where Dear and Greene have lived since 1994. The land was part of a 2,167-acre plantation and is said to have been where Harriet Tubman’s family lived, and a putative stop on the Underground Railroad. The Witness Tree — a tulip poplar — that was said to have been where the escaping enslaved people rested before embarking on the journey to the north, is on the land.
The land’s overwhelming significance isn’t lost on Griffin-Oro. “This is something that Aunt Paulette and Aunt Donna often talk about,” she said. “Harriet brought people out of enslavement. She did not necessarily take them to freedom. In that reframing of the work that Harriet did, it restores more of Harriet’s humanity.”
Griffin-Oro stressed that Tubman’s work should not be considered as complete. “Right now, people are contending with historically what was required of figures like , but as Paulette says in the film, there are everyday people who never stopped,” Griffin-Oro said. “We need to be aware that the reason that we have had certain access and mobility has always come at the expense of those who have carried the torch for the maintenance of and the re-contextualizing of all of those things.”
Griffin-Oro and Kayembe-Oro met these aunties through their work as farmers and environmental activists. Over the years, the relationship has deepened, with the aunties becoming close friends and mentors. “Over the last five years, we’ve been spending a lot more time ‘two on two’ with them. We’re really enjoying the deepening of friendships with them. They’re our besties. They’re our elders, — aunties for sure. They’re family. They’re also definitely our friends.”
Flora visually dominates “The Aunties,” which won an award from the Ubuntu Climate Initiative. There are panoramic views of endless fields of greenery — the camera “climbs” mountainous trees and towering corn stalks, and closely examines grapes, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes on the vine.
“The Aunties” also shows Dear and Greene seated side by side on wing chairs as if on thrones, wearing matching white coveralls and cowrie shell-framed sunglasses. In narration, Dear recounts their meeting in January 1974. Greene recalls knowing immediately that Dear “needed a spirit like mine.” They are shown cradling each other’s arms, wedding rings prominently displayed.
There is no escaping that “The Aunties” is also Dear and Greene’s odds-defying, enduring love story. Said Griffin-Oro, “They enjoy art and food. They are connected to the land and to creature and kin. They are honest, they are kind. They don’t waste time being saccharine if the moment calls for a bit of bitter medicine. They’ve touched adversity. They’ve dealt with loss; they continue to deal with loss. I think apart from that, they just love each other so much. They are so committed to each other.”
Griffin-Oro hopes people will come away from “The Aunties” inspired and moved. “I hope that our film is able to bring people joy in the witness of the aunties and their love and their individual personhood,” she said. “I hope that it touches a place for any viewer, where they might have pain or maybe confusion or curiosity about what it means to live at the intersection of Black womanhood, being gay, being a land steward, being concerned about legacies like Harriet Tubman and the legacies of one’s own family. I hope that it touches and heals.”
“AfroPoP Digital Shorts” is an offshoot of BPM’s award-winning documentary and narrative series about life, art, culture, history, and more throughout the African Diaspora, AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange.
For more information, visit https://blackpublicmedia.org/afropop/.
This article was originally published by New York Amsterdam News.
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