When you’re born on land your ancestors stole, can you live here with integrity? In the Wake of Our Ancestors, a documentary feature currently in production, follows filmmaker Angela Watrous and her aging father on a cross-country reckoning with their 400-year history of settler-colonizer ancestry.

From the California home their family could only legally buy in 1951 because they were “wholly white,” to the Santa Fe Trail junction in New Mexico renamed for their virulently anti-Native grandfather, to the Connecticut site of the genocidal 1637 Pequot Massacre enacted by eighty Englishmen including their ancestor—they learn their people’s harm and their resulting responsibilities today.

Watch the link above to sneak preview the work-in-progress from our first round of filming. We laugh and cry and feel inspired every time we watch it, and we hope you do, too! This is a story of people coming together, acknowledging our true and painful shared history--familially and nationally--and forging restorative paths forward together.

Be part of our project! We began filming in summer 2022, before fundraising, because we had a window between my father's cancer treatments. We’re currently applying for grants to complete filming in the spring and begin post-production this summer (we're aiming for a 2024 release), but that anticipated funding can’t be used to recoup the $22,000 of initial production costs currently on my credit cards. Donations today will lighten my financial burden and help ensure the film’s release—as well as add the energetic support of you and your ancestors.

Thanks in advance for contributing what you can and sharing this fundraiser with your loved ones and social media folks. Your support means so much to us!

Much love and thanks,

Angela Watrous

www.IntheWakeofOurAncestors.com