KINTSUGI
A Portrait Of An American Family
WINTER 2023
Filmmaker and artist Mushen Kieta embarks on a life changing journey across the country and through time to discover a lost lineage and examine the root of domestic traumas that's plagued his family for decades.
Directed by Mushen Kieta
Documentary - 90 Min
KINTSUGI follows Mushen Kieta as he confronts his family's turbulent past and the inter-generational trauma that has greatly harmed their interpersonal relationships and ability to see the future past their pain. At the start of this journey Mushen believed he could change his family but being the black sheep isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
During the grueling interview process Mushen watched as his family members struggled to unpack repressed memories and feigned forgetfulness. He pushed and asked questions about their past and many of them broke down, overwhelmed by emotions. His interviews took him across the country from Boston to Nevada to Indiana to California in search of the truth. He uncovered old family images and discovered through stories and recollections of the past, the richness of his family lineage, one largely ignored by his parents.
Mushen not only gets a better understanding of where he came from but who he is and where the next generations of his family are going if things don’t change. He now thinks about his nieces, nephews, and future children; what environment they are growing up in. The path to reconciliation and healing is not easy but to get there they can no longer communicate in the hot-tempered, explosive manner they're used to. His biggest challenge; getting 10 people to listen, feel heard, feel understood and express remorse from past harm.
Over a span of one week, he brought his parents, siblings, nieces and nephew all together for a family reunion. All of the hurt and pain came to light as they reconnected after years of distance. With nowhere to run but to each other, Mushen’s hope is that they can shed and release pain and make way for deep healing.
The past became a portal to understand the present and the Kietas are faced with the potential to shift the trajectory of their future, to change the legacy of their familial history.
“So much was lost - names, faces, ages, ethnic identities - that African Americans must do what no other ethnic group writ large must do: take a completely shattered vessel and piece it together, knowing that some pieces will never be recovered. This is not quite as harrowing or hopeless as it might sound I liken it to the Japanese art of kintsugi, repairing broken vessels using gold. The scars of the object are not concealed, but highlighted and embraced, thus giving them their own dignity and power. The brokenness and its subsequent repair are a recognized part of the story of the journey of the vessel, not to be obscured, and change, transition, and transformation are seen as important as honoring the original structure and its traditional meaning and beauty.”
— Michael W. Twitty
A Family Business
The Gary American was a newspaper that operated from the 1920s to the 1990s in Gary, Indiana, serving the African-American community of that city. It was known for its strong stance in favor of civil rights, and its strong support of the Democratic Party. At the outset, the American covered only national and local Gary news. In the 1940s, however, it widened its geographic scope to incorporate a regular column on the African-American community in neighboring East Chicago.
Founded in 1927 as the Gary Colored American, for its first three decades the American was owned and operated by the Whitlock family. A.B. Whitlock, who in 1921 had become the first African-American member of the Gary City Council, published the first issue of the Gary Colored American on November 10, 1927. The name changed to the Gary American with the issue of March 20, 1928. The paper remained in the hands of the Whitlock family for several decades. A.B. Whitlock relinquished control to his son Henry Oliver Whitlock and daughter-in-law Edwina Harleston Whitlock in 1947.
The American was a weekly for most of its history, became a biweekly in the 1980s and ceased publication in the late 20th century.
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