When I was growing up, my father made fried catfish sandwiches,
similar to po’boys. He was raised in a small town near Baton Rouge, where
they’d catch crayfish and catfish from fresh water streams and bring them home
for my grandmother to fry. Seafood was a way of life, a cultural staple that
nourished generations. In Nailah Jefferson’s feature
documentary, Vanishing Pearls, black oystermen of Pointe à la Hache, Louisiana address the importance of this cultural staple to their
community, and how it’s been damaged by the 2010 BP Oil Spill, which was made worse by the bureaucratic mismanagement of
funds to compensate them and rebuild the Gulf in the wake of the disaster.

Through carefully researched data, in-depth
interviews with black oysterman, Gulf researchers, marine biologists, and the
very face of the BP claims disaster Ken Feinberg, Jefferson crafts
a deeply involving portrait of how strong, communal interests can be overtaken
by corporate greed and incompetence.

We all recall the images of the shiny blanket
of oil atop the Gulf, and President Obama on the news ensuring
the public that BP would be held accountable for what they had done. But behind
the sound bites and federal promises were black fishermen and oystermen who
built their lives on the daily catch- on fresh oysters caught in a dredge and
later fried to a stomach’s delight, and who weren’t receiving any governmental
support when the news cameras left the scene. This documentary gives a layered
portrayal of their lives before and after the spill.

Byron Encalade, longtime oysterman and the Louisiana
Oysters Association President, emerges in the film as a passionate
leader of the movement to recognize the plight of oystermen in the aftermath of
the BP Oil Spill and demand follow-through from BP. At the beginning of the
film, he gives a heartfelt testimony to Congress, then attends a Louisiana Town
Hall meeting where Ken Feinberg, an attorney hired by the government to
disperse funds to affected individuals and companies, talks in confusing
generalities about how the claims process will work.

There’s a certain magic that happens structurally when later, we
hear from Feinberg, deftly interviewed by Jefferson. His empty promises and
errors become all the more evident when contrasted with the very grave
circumstances of the black oystermen whose claims he denied, or offered a quick
fix of $5,000. Many lost their livelihood- the joy of sailing out on a boat to
catch oysters, only to pull up empty shells.

Born from generations of fishermen who overcame racist,
sharecropping policies to keep black oystermen and fishermen from profiting
from their work, these men and women live life by the water. Encalade notes
that for some oystermen, it’s all they know. So, when Jefferson provides expert
insight and candid footage of the worsening conditions of the Gulf over a
period of three years following the spill, (when it was predicted by Feinberg
and other experts to return to a normal state), it’s sobering. Even as she
provides ample time for both sides to debate the seriousness of the spill and measures
to correct the water with chemical dispersants, Jefferson never forgets the
core of her film- the black oystermen, and how this debate impacts them. It is
here that the narrative is the strongest, and the most potent.

In the words of Encalade: “The world
must know what they’ve done to this community. This place could’ve been a
paradise.”

AFFRM opened Vanishing Pearls in New
York City and Los Angeles on Friday, April 18th, to coincide with the 4th anniversary of one
of America’s worst environmental tragedies, followed by successive play-dates
around the country. The rest of the immediate screening schedule for the film follow sbelow:

Watch an exclusive clip from the film below, followed by the official trailer and poster: