In Person: Lee Anne Schmitt, Jeff Parker

In 1812, as a mere boy, John Brown saw a slave owner beat a black child almost to death. By the mid-1840s, he had become a noted abolitionist as well as a friend  of former slave-turned social reformer Frederick Douglass. Tried for murder, conspiring and treason, he was hanged in 1859. In 2011, essay filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt and her partner, African American musician Jeff Parker (who composed the film’s music), had a son. Purge This Land weaves an aurally and visually complex texture of echoes and correspondences between Brown’s visionary struggle and the filmmaker’s concerns for the safety of her black child.