AIFF and Friends are saddened by the passing of Winfred Rembert on Wednesday, March 31st at the age of 75. He came into our lives in 2012 when we opened the festival with the documentary, ALL ME: The Life & Times of Winfred Rembert by filmmaker Vivian Ducat. We had the good fortune to continue working with Winfred, bringing him to Arlington for an Artist-in-Residency and for numerous other screenings and art exhibits in the greater Boston area. His sense of life, his amazing ability to tell stories, and his visually compelling ways of presenting those stories in his art were only a few of his gifts that he shared with us. We are grateful for our time together.
Here is a 9-minute short film of Winfred - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmqWma1LdY0
that was made 11 years ago by Vivan Ducat before anticipating the making of the documentary, All Me: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert.
The New Yorker article published January 2021
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/life-after-lynching-in-ashes-to-ashes
In the film “Ashes to Ashes,” avid “Star Wars” fan and master leatherwork artist Winfred Rembert connects with his dear friend Dr. Shirley Jackson Whitaker who is on a mission to memorialize the four thousand forgotten African-Americans lynched during the Jim Crow era.