As the Environmental Officer for Saint Helena’s trouble airport project, Annina Van Neel learned of A Story of Bones on the island.

Saint Helena island – a tiny British Overseas Territory in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean – is so remote that the only means of arrival is the world’s last Royal Mail Ship, a six-day journey from Cape Town.

For centuries Saint Helena has existed in near isolation from the rest of the world, a potent symbol of Britain’s colonial past, epitomized by its most famous tourist attraction – Napoleon Bonaparte’s empty tomb.

Annina Van Neel learns of the island’s most terrible atrocity – an unmarked mass burial ground of an estimated 9,000 formerly enslaved Africans. It is one of the most significant traces of the transatlantic slave trade still on earth.

Haunted by this historical injustice, Annina fights alongside renowned African American preservationist Peggy King Jorde and a group of disenfranchised islanders – many of them descendants of enslaved people – for the proper memorialization of these forgotten victims. 

In charting her years-long journey to this moment of catharsis, A Story of Bones documents Annina’s extraordinary transformation from a disempowered bystander to an undaunted social justice activist.

‘the subject of a gripping, thought-provoking film’ – Financial Times ★★★★☆

This screening is part of our Black History Month at the Firstsite Cinema!

To celebrate the month, we’re giving guests who book onto this and any of our other Black History Month films a 10% discount at our café!

Mosaic-Member’s get 15% off at our café (that’s an extra 5% added to your discount)!

Vouchers* can be collected at our Front Desk anytime this month.

*T&Cs apply. Please see your voucher for more information.