Safoi Babana-Hampton, Professor of French at RCS, recently released the official trailer of her HARP Large-Scale Development grant-funded documentary feature “Chœurs atlantiques” (Tales from the Atlantic Beyond). Public release of the film is expected in late spring of 2024.

Weaving archival and oral history research with a rich tapestry of black artistic expressions, this film takes viewers to the French Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, mainland France, and Francophone West Africa (Senegal). It spotlights the creative and critical engagement of artists, historians and cultural actors in the francophone black diaspora with the legacies of the slave trade and of slavery as they intersect with their anti-racist activism and future visions of more just and equitable worlds. 

Production was completed through a collaboration with a transnational team of media professionals and the participation of cultural and historical museums and public television networks in the United States, Martinique, Guadeloupe, France, and Senegal. This film was made possible by generous support from the MSU Humanities and Arts Research Program (HARP Large-Scale Development grant). The HARP Large-Scale Project is funded, in part, through the generosity of the MSU Research Foundation. Additional support was provided by the MSU Department of Romance and Classical Studies, the Diversity Research Network, the Department of English Film Studies Program, the Global Studies in the Arts and Humanities Program, and the Department of Art, Art History & Design. English subtitles were generated by the work of MSU French language students Benjamin Kalosa-Kenyon and Zach Sebree (click on captions for English subtitles).