Interview with Filmmaker Dee Garceau (A MASSACRE IN MEMPHIS)

A MASSACRE IN MEMPHIS played to rave reviews at the August 2019 Documentary Short Film Festival.

Matthew Toffolo: What motivated you to make this film?

Dee Garceau: I’m a U.S. History professor who was living in Memphis and heard about a controversial incident that tore the city apart in 1866. It was a racialized massacre that noone talked about. I wanted to investigate. So I created a course around that research, in which students could read the firsthand testimony of witnesses and survivors, and we visited the sites where the massacre took place. This made it real, and these students became the film production team. Because the massacre had been swept under the rug for so long, we felt a responsibility to bring it to light. And because these students were making a film about it, they took ownership in ways I hadn’t seen within traditional academic courses.

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