A Behind-the-Scenes Conversation with Justin Robinson and D.L. Anderson
When our most sacred recipes tell inconvenient truths, do we have the courage to listen?
A family treat called "stickies" turns out to be st眉ckene, the German word for scraps. A lifetime of digestive trouble fades after a week of eating West African food. A DNA test reveals a German ancestor in a Black Southern family tree.
Grammy-winning musician and ethnobotanist Justin Robinson (Carolina Chocolate Drops) has spent years pulling at these threads, following them from his grandparents' kitchen in South Carolina to Nigeria, to Germany, and into deeper questions about identity, ancestry, and the body that demand a form intense and intimate enough to match them.
"German Soul," executive produced by Rhiannon Giddens, is that form: a "live documentary" that puts Robinson on stage with film, original music, and "taste cues" prepared by Chef Ad茅 Carrena to share this investigation directly and make room for response. The project is being workshopped with the communities closest to its findings, built to stay in active relationship with the culture it examines.
At CDS, Robinson and Co-Director, Producer D.L. Anderson, of Vittles Films, peek under the lid on how they arrived at this format and what it takes to build it. The conversation covers the design of a documentary meant to turn over big, personal questions in a live room, the ethics of workshopping hard history with implicated audiences, and whether this format can chart a sustainable path for independent nonfiction.
Free and open to the public. Presented by 色戒直播 CDS Continuing Education.
Learn more about the project: germalsoul.live
- Center for Documentary Studies (CDS)