“AfroPoP Digital Shorts” returns to the land with “Sweet Samara,” climate and abolitionist film

After taking viewers to a Maryland farm working for Black liberation with the climate activist film The Aunties earlier this year, Black Public Media’s AfroPoP Digital Shorts series returns to the land — this time in a northern town — with Sweet Samara.

About Sweet Samara

The film, which follows a man on a mission to use maple syrup for abolition, has come to streaming on the Black Public Media YouTube Channel.

Sweet Samara is directed by New York City firefighter, Brooklyn resident and Hampshire College alumnus Divad Durant.

Series Synopsis

Jalal Sabur is one of many farmers at Sweet Freedom Farm, a Black-led farm using sustainable practices in Germantown, New York, about 100 miles north of New York City up the Hudson River.

Sabur provides fresh food to families torn apart by mass incarceration, makes syrups, reconnects with his ancestors, and gives tribute to Indigenous communities who tended the land before him. Making syrup is hard work, but the product is sweet and joyous, much like the promise of liberation. Throughout many seasons, Sabur and others tend to the land in a laborious journey toward a full-time working farm and the freedom it represents.

The film captures how maple syrup was historically in the abolition fight to supplant sugar, which relied on the work of enslaved people. Sabur, whose father was incarcerated during his childhood, sees a connection to mass incarceration.

Watch Sweet Samara on Black Public Media YouTube Channel.