Purge This Land

PURGE THIS LAND is an essay film centered around the legacy of the radical abolitionist John Brown. The title is taken from John Brown’s letter of 1859: “I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” The history of racism and slavery in modern America is retold in a film, which spans from the1850’s to present-day USA and in the systemic violence that black Americans are still subjected to. John Brown – a white, militant activist – was sentenced to death in 1859 for a failed attempt to start an armed revolu-tion. His story is a prism, through which the contemporary artist Lee Anne Schmitt’s beautiful and thought-provoking film takes a clear and sober look at the dark side of American history. The past is never dead, it is not even the past, as Faulkner wrote. (Copenhagen Documentary Festival)