LIAM WEIR

Freedom Hill Main Titles

Art Direction & Animation

Princeville, North Carolina is the first town incorporated by freed, formerly enslaved Africans in America.
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Freedom Hill documents this historic town, exploring the environmental racism the community still faces today.
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The town is named in honour of one of its founders, the carpenter Turner Prince. Our director Resita Cox had the idea to use the opening title sequence to tell the founders' history of construction while highlighting the many years of flooding the community has faced.

The style of the titles draws inspiration from Migration Series by the American painter Jacob Lawrence, early African rock art, and the figurative sculptures with elongated forms owned by members of the Princeville community that can be seen in the film.

The founders are dressed in West African garments that they would likely have worn in their home countries, such as boubous and moussors from Senegal, and Kente cloth worn by the Ashanti tribes in Ghana.

As this documentary is about putting this historic American community on the map, the film's typeface, SAA Series – a faithful redrawing of the iconic type found on American road signage – seemed an appropriate fit.