ASE-Funded Extended Trailer for “Displaced from the Birthplace of America” to Premiere at the 2026 Virginia Black Film Festival

The Art & Science Exchange (ASE) is proud to share that the extended trailer for “Displaced from the Birthplace of America”—a 2025 ASE Showcase project—has been selected for early screening at the 2026 Virginia Black Film Festival (VBFF). The full feature documentary will debut on June 20, 2026, but audiences will have the opportunity to experience an early look on Saturday, February 21 at 12:00 pm at the Kimball Theatre, located at 428 W Duke of Gloucester Street in Colonial Williamsburg. A descendant-led conversation exploring local history, displacement, and the ongoing importance of intergenerational storytelling will immediately follow the screening. This year’s VBFF runs from February 19–22, 2026.

Directed by Jacqueline Williams and produced by The Village Initiative, the documentary explores the layered history of the Historic Triangle Block—a once-thriving center of Black businesses, culture, and family life in Williamsburg. During the 1970s, the neighborhood was razed under the rhetoric of “urban renewal,” displacing residents and dismantling a community that had anchored Black life in the region for generations.

Williams, whose grandmother’s home was among those destroyed, described the festival invitation as both humbling and galvanizing. “It is an absolute honor to be included in the film festival,” she said. “It’s been more than a screening. The film is taking us places we could have never imagined.” She emphasized why the project must remain rooted in community testimony: “This is our inheritance. These are our stories, and they deserve to be told by the people in their voice.”

The film foregrounds displaced residents and their descendants as the principal historians of their own experience. Their accounts illuminate the lasting impact of the demolition and highlight the tensions between Williamsburg’s public image—as “the birthplace of the nation” and “the cradle of American democracy”—and the realities of the communities whose histories have often been pushed aside.

For Williams, this work carries spiritual and intergenerational weight. “The community’s voice is no longer silent,” she reflected. “The voice of the ancestors is no longer silent.” The extended trailer offers an early window into that reclamation of memory, pride, and belonging.

The Village Initiative—a grassroots 501(c)(3) committed to equity and justice in Williamsburg–James City County—produced the film in alignment with its broader mission, which includes policy advocacy, school-based programming, community outreach and early literacy, and the preservation of local Black histories.

To deepen community engagement, the 2026 Virginia Black Film Festival will also feature a guided tour of the Historic Triangle on the following day. Tickets for the extended trailer and other festival events are available here.

“This early recognition from the Virginia Black Film Festival underscores the transformative power of community-rooted storytelling,” said Omiyẹmi (Artisia) Green, faculty director of the Art & Science Exchange. “We are honored to have supported a project that restores histories too often marginalized and continues to strengthen the partnership between the university and the communities we serve.”

The 2026 VBFF will bring together filmmakers, scholars, students, and community members for four days of film screenings, dialogue, and celebration of Black cinematic expression. More information is available at www.vbfilmfestival.org.