Broward Premiere / USA / 2026 / English / 49 min / Documentary, Florida Slavery /
Director: H James Gilmore; Producers: Tracy Halcomb
Contact: hjames@acadiapictures.com
After a black slave from the Carolinas escapes to Spanish Florida, he becomes the leader of the first sanctioned free black settlement in North America and ultimately a hero in the fight against the British. A Book of Freedom: The Confessions of Francisco Menéndez is a docudrama that incorporates documentary evidence and historical fiction to tell the true story of one of the most remarkable people in Florida history.
Director Biography – Students of the Cinematic Art Program at Flagler College
The Cinematic Arts program at Flagler College is based around the production of a multi-year film project created entirely by students under the supervision of a visiting filmmaker. Over the course of 5 semesters, the students in the program wrote the script, organized all aspects of pre-production, were cast in many of the roles, took on all of the crew positions on set, and edited the footage together. In short, they did it all as a collaborative effort.
Director Statement
As the Visiting Filmmaker in Cinematic Arts at Flagler College, I served as the faculty project director and advisor on this film project.
I am incredibly proud of the efforts of our amazing student production team. These students chose an incredibly important story of local colonial history here in St Augustine, largely ignored by the history books, as the source for their original docudrama.
Unlike most student productions, this is a programmatic production, created entirely by an enormous team of students over multiple semesters. None of them had ever done anything like this before, and it was designed as a high-impact learning experience in the cinematic arts.
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