St. John Film Society – Fambourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

Faubourg Treme is considered the oldest black neighborhood in America, the origin of the Southern Civil Rights Movement, and the birthplace of jazz. Five years before Hurricane Katrina hit, two New Orleanians, one white and one black- filmmaker Dawn Logsdon and writer Lolis Eric Elie – began documenting the rich living culture of Faubourg Treme, then a little known neighborhood overshadowed by the adjacent famous French Quarter.  Their tapes miraculously survived the flooding that devastated their city. Now the completed film uncovers Treme’s unique and hidden history and situates it within three centuries of African American struggle – from slavery through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights, to the recent threat of Hurricane Katrina. Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans is one of those rare films that transcends a local story to expand our national understanding of the American experience.