Film Record: Song After Sorrow

Still image from Song After Sorrow.

Identifier:

• 94799 (Source: National Archives)

Date produced: 1939

Filmmaker(s):

Ray L. Garner

Virginia Garner

Production credits:

• Kenneth F. Space, Editor

Country of Production:

United States

Languages:

English

Length:

2 reels (643 ft, 17 minutes 48 seconds)

Format:

16mm

Colour:

B&W

Sound Notes:

Silent

Awards/Recognition:

National Archives list of titled amateur films

Description:

"Documentary: Illustrates plight of leprosy victims before and after the opening of the Bibanga Leper Camp by missionaries." National Archives.

Resources:

"Practical Films," Movie Makers, Nov. 1939, 559.

This film is one of ten produced by the Garners as part of the Africa Motion Picture Project of 1938, which was funded by church denominations and the Harmon Foundation (Movie Makers, Nov. 1939, 559).

Virginia Garner, Images Out of Africa: The Virginia Garner Diaries of the Africa Motion Picture Project, University Press of America, 2011.

This film is a part of the Harmon Foundation Collection held by National Archives.

Locations:

• Bibanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Filming)

Subjects:

• Education
• Indigenous peoples
• Medicine
•      Health
• Africa

Genre:

• Documentary

Form:

• Short

Tags:

Repository:

Harmon Foundation Collection, National Archives

Viewing Notes:

"Reel 1: Show's lepers begging for admission to overcrowded mission hospital; one dies at the gate. After camp opens, lepers arrive for care; ambulatory patients build homes for less fortunate ones; lepers weave, sew, make pottery, etc.; children at school and play. Reel 2: Lepers work on farm, and extract chaulmoogra oil used for treatment, from berries of trees," via National Archives.

Video Link:

• via YouTube

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