In the short film “The Water will carry us home” 2018 the stop motion is a retelling of stolen Africans who are thrown off a slave ship while going through the Middle passage. This is a story of how humans’ relationship with nature heals, a story of rebirth in the face of tragedy. The stop-motion animation starts with what sounds to be tribal singing, and shots of relics, historical cultural items placed about. These material items tell a history, one that is tangible. A feminine figure is introduced, she appears to be doing a spiritual ritual, and this is when we are first shown a recurring theme, the third eye (1:01). The third eye can be seen throughout the stop motion, a symbol of seeing beyond what is hidden. There is a shift from live action film to water color 2D art, despite it being two dimensional the story holds much depth. With the historical context of this stop-motion, the tragedies of the middle passage are well-hidden in our written histories. This third eye is symbolic, allowing us to see what has been often overlooked from the enslaved Africans’ point of view. At 1:35 there are multiple doors, these doors we can assume open to different experiences and stories that are often untold. The story of the discarded slaves is just one out of the many. 

The image of the boat shows us the many enslaved people in crowded conditions, mixing media with a newspaper excerpt saying how the ship is holding “250 fine healthy negroes 3:05.” The description of these African people frames them as commodities, cargo that only values them for their labor. This newspaper excerpt is used to also show the different sides and narratives that were being released. The women who were deemed unhealthy and unfit, usually pregnant women were thrown overboard. At 4:00 and 4:23, there is one mother in particular that is lying in fetal form, surrounded by the ocean, she seems like a fetus in the womb. This detail further humanizes the victims and is a reminder that mothers are the children of others, and they deserve the same love and empathy too. The mothers turn into majestical mermaid, with a third eye, they are reborn again in the ocean. The third eye represents a spiritual rebirth as they become intertwined with the sea (4:33). 

We then transition back to live action film, a woman pays her respects and mourns the lives lost out at sea. The sea holds their stories and histories and tells it in a way that transcends the human language.