UNL scholars release new film looking into the fight over slavery, freedom

University of Nebraska-Lincoln scholars Kwakiutl Dreher, William Thomas and Michael Burton are developing a new documentary that will take an in-depth look into the fight over slavery. 

The team is following their successful short film “Anna” with an hour-long documentary titled, “The Bell Affair: A Film Reframing American Slavery and Freedom”, according to Nebraska Today.

“The project tells the story of Daniel Bell, who launched a lawsuit to make his family free just as a labor strike, a lynch mob and a race riot erupted in the nation’s capital in the late summer of 1835,” Thomas, a professor of history and John and Catherine Angle Chair in the Humanities, said in the article. 

“The Bell Affair” is the group’s second animated feature and is partly funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities received in August, according to Nebraska Today. 

“Anna,” which won the Best Animation award at the New Media Film Festival in 2018, focused primarily on the lead character. “The Bell Affair,” however, will focus on a wide variety of characters, according to Nebraska Today.